


The Wild Winds Around You

by UchiHime



Series: Icarus [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Body Modification, Can be read as a stand alone, Comic Book Science, Deaf Clint Barton, Kid Fic, M/M, Mpreg, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 17:42:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3538343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UchiHime/pseuds/UchiHime
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky finds something he never expected hidden inside a Hydra base.</p><blockquote>
  <p>    <em>Bucky became aware of five things about the man in the following second: he hadn’t launched for Bucky as a threat but because he was happy to see him, he was chained to the floor of the room by a fetter on his ankle, he was an omega, and he was pregnant. It was the fifth thing that made Bucky quite literally freeze in his tracks. This man smelled to him like mate.</em><br/></p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Nature of Life

**Author's Note:**

> So this is it. This is "that damn fic." It is undoubtedly the biggest headache I've ever given myself. I started writing it because the idea jumped in my head and wouldn't go away. I thought it would be a short little one-shot and I could go back to writing more important fics. I've never been so wrong. The fic completely consumed my life. 
> 
> There is an [8tracks playlist](http://8tracks.com/herlastsong/the-wild-winds-around-you) that goes with this story.
> 
> Chapter Title from "Be and Be Not Afraid" by Tracey Chapman

**Chapter One: The Nature of Life (is Chaos and Confusion)**

“I don’t have as much information as I’d like before sending you in,” Hill stated.

“What do you have?” The Widow asked, leaning forward in a casually seductive way. Bucky wondered if she was even conscious of the move. Seduction was one of her top techniques for gathering intel; Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if her brain was conditioned to flirt the moment the thought of needing information entered her mind. She was even emitting low levels of omega pheromones, though they wouldn’t be all that enticing to Hill, a beta.

Hill continued the debriefing in her usual no-nonsense way, completely unfazed by Widow’s attempt at seduction. “It’s a Hydra base referred to on paper as ‘The Menagerie’.” Bucky was suddenly a lot more interested in what she had to say. It had been a year and a half since Hydra’s infiltration of SHIELD had been discovered. It had been a year and five months since Bucky had been freed from his life of captivity and mind control. In the last seventeen months SHIELD had reformed, Bucky had ceased being the Winter Soldier, they’d defended the world from another alien invasion, they’d fought mutants and robots and AIM, and yet they were still finding Hydra’s hidden tentacles.

“The prisoner taken during your last mission couldn’t tell us more than that it’s a research facility of some kind. We have no idea what they’re researching, but we can assume it’s dangerous given Hydra’s track record.”

“Do we have a location?” The Captain asked.

“Switzerland.” Hill answered. “Since we don’t know exactly what you’ll be up against, I’m sending you in with backup.”

“The Avengers?” Widow asked with an arched eyebrow.

Hill shook her head. “Agents May, Triplet, and Skye.”

“Coulson’s team?” The Captain asked.

They’d worked with Coulson’s special team before. When Bucky had first broken free of Hydra’s control, he’d been poked and prodded by Coulson’s Fitzsimmons, until they decided the only thing left that could heal him was time. While he’d still been more Winter Soldier than Bucky Barnes, some alien tech had fallen into the wrong person’s hands and a large scale operation had been needed to recover it. It had taken all of Coulson’s team and Bucky, Captain, and Widow had been called in for aid.

“They are one of my best teams,” Hill commented. “Second only to the three of you, and with the right combination of agents on the right operation, they’re better than you.”

On SHIELD missions, Bucky worked almost exclusively with the Captain and Widow. He wasn’t trusted enough to be given solo missions and he didn’t trust others enough to work with anyone else, except Hawkeye of course. Bucky was officially an Avenger, complete with his own floor in the monstrosity of a tower that was their base. He worked well with the other Avengers, especially Hawkeye. Unfortunately, Hawkeye did more solo missions than anything, leaving Bucky with Captain and Widow.

Coulson’s team had six agents (May, Skye, Triplet, Morse, Hunter, and Coulson himself) cleared for the field, plus three agents (Fitz, Simmons, and Mack) on support. They also had the added bonus of being a mixed dynamic team. Bucky and Steve were both alphas, and Widow was dual-dynamical (able to switch between alpha and omega, without the disadvantage of the omega’s heat and the alpha’s frenzy states). Coulson’s team had alphas, betas, and even omegas with them.

“We never doubted their skills,” Widow said. “It’s just they’re known for doing their own thing. We get called in to back them up, never the other way around. Sometimes they feel more SHIELD-adjacent than actually SHIELD.”

“Well, they are SHIELD and they are your backup. And your ride.”

“We’re taking the Bus?” The Widow said with another arched eyebrow.

“It’s a very nice Bus.”

** … **

The base was a multistory square building that was a dark brown scar on the lush green landscape. One corner of the building had a tower several stories taller than the rest. There was no way to hide their approach, so they didn’t bother trying to hide at all.

“We’ll go in through the front door, work in pairs, clear every floor, stay in contact, and shoot only to wound if you can,” was the directions the Captain offered. They were all going into this without any real information on what to expect.

Each member of Bucky’s team was paired with a member of Coulson’s team: Widow with Trip, the Captain with Skye, and Bucky with May. (Bucky was always paired with May when they worked with Coulson’s team, because she was the one most capable of taking him down if he suddenly defaulted to Hydra’s programming.) Coulson, Morse, and Hunter were away on another mission and Fitz, Simmons, and Mack were staying on the Bus.

Getting into the facility had been easier than they’d expected. There’d been no defenses outside, or if there were they didn’t activate. They’d had to blow the door open with a small impact bomb, but otherwise they had no trouble.

“Stay on your toes,” Cap said through their comm unit, “this looks too easy.”

All six of them cleared the ground floor and met no opposition between the entrance and the elevators. They split up there. Bucky and May took the elevator down to the lowest three floors, Cap and Skye took the top three, and Widow and Trip took everything between.

Bucky raised his gun when the elevator rolled to a stop, ready to fire as soon as the doors opened if needed. It wasn’t needed. There was no one in the hall outside the elevator. Bucky was beginning to wonder if this whole mission was a goose chase to an empty facility. He carefully cleared the floor along with May anyway. There was nothing but what looked to be empty conference rooms. They took the stairs to the next floor.

This floor had a lot more doors. Evenly spaced steel doors with small observation windows lined both sides of the hallway. “I think I know what they were researching,” May said, peering into the window of one of the rooms, more like cells.

“Humans?” Widow said through the comm in a tone that made it less a question and more a statement.

“No prizes for guessing,” May quipped back.

“Wasn’t a guess. They did a bad job at wiping their computers, I’m copying everything I can.”

“That may be the only information we’ll get out of this place,” May said. She was going from door to door down one side of the hall, while Bucky did the same on the other side. He looked into every window he passed and was greeted by the same sight: a cloud of green smoke and a crumpled body. “Everyone down here is dead.”

“Not everyone,” Bucky said, looking into the window of one of the cells. He dropped his gun and let it hang from a strap on his shoulder. Bucky took a step back and raised his left fist. The tech in his arm was better now. Stark had taken a look at it and found room for improvement. It was both lighter and stronger and no longer hurt like pinched muscles whenever it took a hard blow. His arm now felt more like a part of him than the arm Hydra had him wearing for seventy years; it was made of vibranium and powered by arc reactor technology. He pulled back his fist and slammed it into the door. The metal made a groaning sound and buckled under the force of the blow. One more hit, and the door all but flew off its hinges.

The man huddled against the far wall of the room was staring at Bucky as if he’d seen a ghost. Bucky raised his hands in the international sign of ‘I come in peace’ and took a slow step into the room. “Don’t worry,” he said in a carefully measured tone, “I’m here to help.”

“It’s you,” the man said in a tone Bucky could not quite read. A series of small events unfolded in the next few seconds: the man got to his feet and launched himself towards Bucky, causing Bucky to take a reflexive step back and reach for his gun, when Bucky grabbed his gun a pair of large wings exploded from the man’s back and wrapped around him as he retreated a few steps.

Bucky became aware of five things about the man in the following second: he hadn’t launched for Bucky as a threat but because he was happy to see him, he was chained to the floor of the room by a fetter on his ankle, he was an omega, and he was pregnant. It was the fifth thing that made Bucky quite literally freeze in his tracks. This man smelled to him like _mate._

May entered the room at that moment, speaking before taking in the situation. “The rest of the floor is clear,” May said, stepping up behind Bucky. Whatever she’d been planning to say next froze on her tongue as she took in the sight before her. The bound man was testing the limits of his chains and staring incredulously at Bucky, his wings spread wide behind him.

“Guys, we’ve got to get out of here,” Agent Triplet said suddenly through the comm. “This place is rigged to blow in seven minutes.”

Strangely enough, the winged man seemed to have heard the low spoken words. “We can’t leave yet,” he said as he started tugging harder at his chain. Bucky was hit with a sudden wave of panic that wasn’t his own. “We need to get to…” he cut off the sentence with a frustrated scream when he failed to break free of the chain.

“Hold still,” May ordered.

“You have to save him,” the man said, staring at Bucky with desperate brown eyes. “At the far end of the hall, there’s a staircase hidden in a room marked as a closet. There’s a locked door all the way at the bottom. Get through that door and go to the east end of the hall. There’ll be another door and that’s where they keep him.” He rambled off a series of numbers that Bucky assumed was a lock code of some sort. “Go!”

Bucky found himself unable to disobey that tone. He didn’t know who it was he was meant to be saving, only that a man that smelled like his mate told him to go. Bucky turned and sprinted out of the room.

He’d known since he’d resurfaced from the depths of Hydra’s conditioning that he smelled like a bonded alpha. Steve told him he hadn’t been bonded when he fell seventy years ago. They’d assumed that Hydra’s bootleg-serum had messed with his biology and created a faux bond. That had made more sense than the idea that Hydra had forced him to mate someone.

Even for an alpha, a bonded mate held a great deal of power over you, like that tone of voice Bucky had been unable to disobey. For what reason would Hydra give someone else control over their greatest weapon? If the man with the wings had looked at him with those pleading brown eyes and asked him with that desperate tone to destroy anyone who came near him, Bucky would have done so without hesitation, no matter what Hydra’s conditioning told him. Especially if the man was leaking pregnant omega mate hormones all over the place. The only advantage Hydra would gain from mating him was control over his frenzied state. An omega mate was the only thing that could stop an alpha in a frenzy, though even that was only a shaky control in a couple bond instead of a triad.

Bucky delivered a hard kick to the door at the bottom of the stairs and barely lost his stride as the door collapsed under the force. He sprinted down the hall to the east end. It was a reinforced sliding door that would not have given way no matter how hard Bucky hit or kicked it. Bucky almost let out a sigh of relief when he saw the number pad on the wall next to it. He jammed in the numbers the man with the wings had recited to him and did show his relief when the door slid open.

“Barnes, you need to get out of there,” the Widow said from the comm in his ear. Bucky ignored her. The inside of the room was larger than Bucky had expected. It had a surprisingly high ceiling with an observation window half up one wall. A series of staggered platforms dominated the wall opposite the window. The first platform could be accessed by a set of steel stairs, but there were no stairs leading to the higher platforms. He recalled seeing a tower in one corner of the compound when they’d approached it from outside. Bucky assumed this room was at the bottom of that tower. At the very top was a skylight.

The room looked empty. Bucky looked around anxiously. Whoever he was meant to save was supposed to be in this room, yet he could see no one. He wondered if he was in the wrong place or if he’d been sent here under false pretenses, but then he saw a small movement from a platform about half way up the wall. Bucky ran for the stairs. He took them three at a time, then leaped from the first platform to the one next to it. He turned and jumped to the third platform. The distance between the platforms grew steadily wider with each one he reached.

Finally, he reached the platform he’d saw the movement on and was startled by his findings. There was a little boy with wavy dark hair, skin the color of sunlight through wheat fields, and watery hazel eyes. He was curled up in a nest of blankets and pillows and was almost completely concealed beneath two large mottled wings. The alpha in Bucky screamed _mine._

“Hey, little man," Bucky said softly, kneeling down in front of the child. Toddler would be a more appropriate description. The boy couldn’t have been more than three years old. His wings shook in fear as Bucky reached towards him. “Hey, hey, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m here to help. I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to take you to your dad.”

“Daddy?” The kid mumbled.

“Yeah, I’m going to take you to your dad, but you’ve got to trust me. Alright?”

The kid stared at Bucky for a long moment, before nodding slowly and getting to his feet. He was tiny and seemed even smaller between the large wings protruding from his back. Bucky held his arms open and the kid walked towards him in slow, wobbly steps.

Bucky picked the kid up, being careful of his wings, and set him on his hip. He was startled by just how little the boy weighed, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He looked around. By his calculations, there was only three minutes until the place was going to be blown sky high and that wasn’t nearly enough time to get back to the ground and out of the building. The way he saw it, the only way out was up. Get to the top platform and punch through the skylight. Simple.

“Barnes,” the Captain said, Bucky cut him off before an order Bucky had no intention of following could be issued.

“Get everyone out and back to the Bus,” Bucky ordered. “I’m going to need a pick up from the top of the tower.”

Cap was silent for a brief second that felt longer than it was, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” he finally said.

Bucky let out an amused snort, “So do I.”

Steve’s sigh carried quite clearly over the comm. “Everyone back to the Bus; Mack have her ready to be in the sky by time we’re outside.”

Bucky tuned out the rest of what was being said as he glance once more around the room and judged the time it would take him to reach the top. He shifted the kid from his hip to his back, taking care to show him how to hold on properly with his arms around Bucky’s neck. “You ever been to the top?” Bucky asked in a calm voice.

The boy gripped him tighter, almost strangling Bucky as he did so. Bucky could feel his fear. “When they make me fall.”

Bucky touched the boy’s arms and coaxed him into loosening his chokehold. “You just hold on to me and close your eyes. I’m not going to let you fall. I’m going to get you out of here, but no matter what you do, you can’t let me go.”

“Okay,” the kid mumbled. He buried his face in the side of Bucky’s neck. Bucky took a deep breath, calculated the distance to the next platform, took a couple steps backwards, and did a running jump to launch himself into the air.

**... **

Bucky watched the winged man on the screen fixed to the wall opposite him. He and the little boy huddled to his side were in a sedated sleep down in Fitzsimmons’ lab. Simmons had had that “if I could cut him open just a little bit” look on her face and they’d had to all but drag her away. She wouldn’t have run any tests on the man without his consent anyway, but it was better to get her away from the temptation.

“His name is Samuel Wilson,” Skye said. Bucky, Steve, Natasha, and the members of Coulson’s team that had accompanied them were all standing around a conference table on the Bus, discussing the mission and watching Skye weed through the information Natasha had managed to save from the facility before it’d been blown to pieces.

“A soldier,” she added. “Staff Sargent in the Air Force, 58th pararescue, he was halfway through his second tour when he went MIA during a night mission in Afghanistan about eight years ago. His wingman on that mission was found dead, but there’d been no sign of Wilson. While in the military, Wilson was part of a project called EXO-7. It was an elite squad where all the men were trained to use, irony of ironies, mechanical wings.” She pressed a button and a video appeared before them of the man, Sam Wilson, flying through the air wearing military fatigues, goggles, and a wing pack.

“From these files, it looks like EXO-7 was a legitimate military operation, but Hydra used its findings to choose candidates for their own Project Icarus,” Skye informed them. “Wilson was the only person from the EXO project that they actually got their hands on, though. That base, the Menagerie, was a science research facility experimenting with human genetics and alien technology. In the case of Project Icarus, they were using the alien tech to cross human DNA with avian DNA. Of the five test subjects they started with, only Wilson was considered a success. Not only did his body not reject the foreign DNA, it adapted to work with it. Wilson is the only subject from Project Icarus to successfully achieve flight with his wings.”

Skye continued decrypting the data and Trip picked up reading it. “After the initial success with Wilson, they expanded the experiment. It seemed they hadn’t counted on Wilson being dual-dynamical, but found it too convenient to pass up. They wanted to see if he would pass his new genetics on to his offspring. They impregnated him six times in the last seven years.” Dual-dynamic males could conceive and carry children like omegas, but they also had knots on their penises like alphas. They could release both alpha and omega pheromones. People with dual-dynamics couldn’t go into heat unless it was medically induced, and they couldn’t go into alpha frenzies at all.

“The first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage late in the first trimester. While his body didn’t reject the changes in his own genetics, it did reject the presence of the fetus. They messed with his immune system and tried again. The next two pregnancies were carried to term, but both resulted in still births. Something about his uterus and nutrients, Jemma could understand it better than me. The first still birth was mostly human, but crippled or something. The second still birth had one wing, but was also crippled. Pregnancy number four was the first live birth. A little girl. She lived only a month. It was determined that the problem was not with Wilson, but with the DNA that they were inseminating him with. At this point, Wilson was exhibiting symptoms of something called PDD?”

Simmons filled in the blank for them. “That’s a condition omegas can get after suffering multiple miscarriages or still births. Their bodies don’t react well to having released so much gestation hormones without releasing the Abstract Philoprogenitive Bonding Hormone, also known as the A-O parental bonding hormone, afterward.”

The alpha-omega parental bonding hormone created what was sometimes referred to as a diluted mating bond between a parent and their children. It was the hormone that caused alphas and omegas to be able to instinctively know they were in the presence of their offspring. In strong amounts, it gave alpha and omega parents a mild ability to sense their child’s emotions, a vague sense of their location at all times, and a feel of their physical condition. It was the reason Bucky had looked at the child locked in that tower room and known without a doubt that he was his son.

“PDD is particularly difficult for omegas who aren’t bonded to an alpha at the time. His health would have been deteriorating. Impregnating him without bonding him first would have been impossible. It’s rare for Dual-Dynamical people to get PDD, but I suppose that many traumatic pregnancies would override the alpha half of his nature.”

Trip nodded and continued reading the information Skye decrypted. “It says here that they’d already done tests and learned that the copycat-serum used in the Asset could be passed genetically. It was theorized that the Asset’s DNA would do what regular human DNA could not: stabilize the transference of Wilson’s modified DNA to a fetus. They induced Wilson’s heat and locked him in a room with the Soldier until they bonded.”

Bucky paled. He’d been hoping Trip wouldn’t say that. He’d hoped that they’d simply used his semen to inseminate Wilson and created a fake bond between them with some weird or alien science. He’d hoped for anything other than having the man locked in a room with the Asset. There was no telling what he’d done to him. His recovered memories told him that as the Winter Soldier, he had little to no interactions with omegas. Suddenly putting him in the room with one in heat could have triggered a mating frenzy. Which isn’t as bad as a rage frenzy, but it was still pretty fucking dangerous to everyone around.

“Bucky,” Steve said softly, he had shouldered his way between Trip and Skye and was reading from the computer screen, “It says here that in the presence of a distressed omega in heat, the Asset exhibited an unforeseen amount of calm, patience, and a level of compassion they’d thought him no longer capable of. You didn’t hurt him, Buck.”

“You can’t know that for certain,” Bucky said. A level of compassion not expected from the Asset was basically any compassion at all. Anything less than murder in cold blood was more compassion than expected from the Winter Soldier.

“According to this, when you didn’t go into a mating frenzy, they wanted to separate you from him as soon as possible in order to correct the bug in your programming,” Skye said. “I’ll never get used to seeing words like that pertaining to people. They couldn’t separate you because Wilson’s PDD was too serious and moving him away from his newly bonded almost killed him. Looks like Wilson and the Asset ended up playing house together for over a year. The child that came from this is the little boy with him now. I’m assuming they ran a textbook worth of experiments on him as well, since there’s a separate file for him. A file that I’m not going to read because I don’t think my heart can handle whatever they felt was okay to do to a baby.”

“Send it to me,” Natasha and Melinda said at the same time.

Skye looked between the two women and shrugged. “As you wish.” She hit some more buttons on her computer, before continuing the summary of the information she’d decrypted. “After fifteen months with Wilson, they couldn’t justify keeping the Asset off ice any longer. His programming was breaking down and his memories were returning, so they broke up the happy family. The Asset was put back in cryostasis and the kid was moved to a different part of the compound. They tried to keep Wilson away from him as much as possible.

“Wilson is apparently resistant to having his brain wiped and reprogrammed, it was theorized that this was due to him being dual-dynamical. They said he had too much freewill for them to feel safe keeping the kid around. They used the kid as a way to control Wilson. A reward and punishment system where…nope, my heart can’t handle that. Just suffice it to say, Wilson learned quickly to do what he was told in order to protect his son.”

Bucky frowned, recalling the kid’s words about only ever going to the top of the tower when ‘they made him fall’.

Natasha cut her off. She had her tablet in hand and had just finished reading whatever was in the file Skye had sent her about the kid. “Pregnancy number six is the one currently in progress. Looks like the Menagerie continued some of their experiments even after Hydra was dismantled. The kid is basically a mini Super Soldier with wings. He had the potential to be their greatest weapon, and two guns are better than one, right? Wilson was impregnated by some of the Soldier’s semen that they had stored up. They were going to raise the children to do everything the Winter Soldier can do, with less maintenance work required. They seem pretty sure that Hydra would be reformed and they wanted the weapons ready when the time came.”

Bucky stared at the video feed again. The people on the screen were his mate and son and he had no memories of them. Fifteen months seemed like a small amount of time to not remember considering the seventy years that was originally gone, but it felt like he’d lived an entire lifetime in those fifteen months, and now he couldn’t remember any of it.

Wilson had remembered him, though. He’d seen Bucky and had recognized him. He hadn’t shown fear or anger. He’d been happy Bucky was there. He’d trusted Bucky to save their son. And when Bucky had delivered the boy into his arms, Wilson had actually hugged him. They hadn’t needed to sedate him until he’d had an adverse reaction to being led into Fitzsimmons’ lab (and by sedate, Bucky meant Melinda had shot him with a weapon they referred to as an “ICER”). The boy, Bucky’s son, had freaked out too and had also been sedated (proper sedation this time).

Of all the things Bucky had lost while being under Hydra’s control, he’d never thought a family would be one of them.


	2. Every Push, Every Shove

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant to have this posted yesterday, but I was wrapping up my internet-less faux spring break and only just now got home. The feedback on this so far has been amazing. There was a lot more than I expected and I just can't stop smiling, because I really did pour a lot of effort into (most) of this fic and I'm glad to see it paying off. 
> 
> My only beta is Microsoft's Narrator whose dull voice I listen to constantly in hopes of hearing the mistakes my eyes gloss over.
> 
> Couple of quick things:  
> 1\. I will be posting a really short "prequel" sometime either tomorrow or sometime this week. It will be made the first story in the series, because it takes place before the Clint POV prequel already posted. That leaves only one more planned prequels for me to work on.  
> 2\. The endnotes of this chapter will contain a small list of unmentioned details in this universe. Mostly the relationships I see happening in the background, but I never actually mention in the story.
> 
> Chapter Title from Embers by Owl City

**Chapter Two: Every Push, Every Shove (Every War, Every Love)**

They’d landed the Bus at a SHIELD secured facility and Wilson and his son had been carted off. They’d wanted to take them to a lab. As if they were just science experiments and not people. Bucky had put his foot down.

He refused to let Wilson wake up in another lab. How, then, would SHIELD be any better than the Hydra operatives who’d had them all these years? He’d told them that if Wilson wanted to submit himself to lab testing, that would be his decision, but until he was awake and able to make that decision, he would be treated like a person.

No one wanted to piss off the Winter Soldier, so Wilson and the boy had been given proper quarters instead of taken to a lab. With nothing else he could do at the moment, Bucky had wandered off to an empty corner of the facility to be alone with his thoughts. He’d hacked the security feed watching Wilson’s room using the tablet he’d gotten from Stark. He wasn’t too thrilled about the video monitoring in what was meant to be a private room, but he understood the necessity and, since it was there, he took advantage of it. When Steve found him hours later, Bucky was watching Wilson on one half of his screen, while reading up on omega behavioral patterns on the other side.

When Wilson had woken, the first thing he’d done was get out of his bed and rush over to the other bed to check on his son. When he saw that the kid was alright, Wilson had surveyed his surroundings with a frown. Their room was Spartan base housing originally designed for one person. A second twin size bed had been squeezed in between the desk and dresser, the other bed was near the closet and small adjoining bathroom.

Wilson pulled the mattress, sheets and pillows from the bed he’d evacuated and piled them in the corner of the room furthest from the door. He picked up his son and laid him in that corner, then he stripped the sheets and pillows from the boy’s bed and added them to the pile. He then rearranged the furniture so that anyone seated in that corner would be almost invisible to anyone entering through the doorway.

It was a nest. Bucky knew this because Clint often nested in the ventilation of Avengers’ Tower whenever he was feeling too stressed. According to what Bucky was reading, nesting behavior was common for omegas, especially during pregnancy. People with dual-dynamics rarely exhibited extreme nesting behavior unless they were distressed. Nests built due to pregnancies were usually in secluded areas, while distress nests could be built out in the open if the area was easily defensible.

Bucky did note that Wilson hadn’t even tried to leave the room. It seemed he was too used to locked doors to even try the knob.

“Bucky, are you okay?” Steve asked.

“Everyone else in that compound, all the other prisoners and experiments, were dead,” Bucky said. The facility had looked hastily departed. It was like someone had tipped Hydra off that they were coming and they’d dropped everything and jumped ship, choosing to kill their experiments whether than let SHIELD have them. “Everyone except them.” He’d expected to find another dead body when he’d looked through the window of Wilson’s cell, but instead he’d found a pair of brown eyes staring back at him, alive and for the most part well, with no trace of the green smoke that filled the rest of the cells.

“Bucky,” Steve started, but Bucky kept talking over him.

“I have a family, Steve. A mate, a son, another child on the way. And I just came so close to losing them before I even knew they existed.” Bucky paused and this time Steve didn’t even try to say anything. “Can I even really call them my family? I don’t know who they are. And I’m not the person he remembers. What do I even say to them? What do I say to _him_ , Steve?”

Steve was silent for a long moment, then he shifted casually into Bucky’s space and nudged their shoulders together. “You deal with one thing at a time. For now, how about you start with ‘hi, I’m Bucky’ and see where it goes from there?”

** … **

The most important part of any successful mission was recon. With this in mind, Bucky put off visiting Wilson for an entire day as he watched his interactions with the various SHIELD agents who entered his room via the video feeds. The first person to enter the room with Wilson was a low level agent delivering a meal.

As soon as the agent entered the room, Wilson had huddled his son into a corner of their nest and took a defensive position in front of him. The agent had crossed the room slowly and the closer he got to the nest, the more Wilson seemed to bristle. His wings spread wide behind him and his muscles tensed, his eyes did not leave the intruder for a single second.

The agent stopped a few feet from the nest and lowered the tray of food to the floor, then slowly backed out of the room. He did not say a word to Wilson the whole time. Wilson remained on guard until the door closed behind the agent.

Wilson did not go for the food right away, he turned around to check on his son first. For about a minute, he did nothing but cuddle the boy close to him, Bucky was sure he would have stayed that way much longer if the boy hadn’t wiggled out of his hold and crawled towards the tray of food. Wilson stopped him before he actually touched it though. Bucky watched as Wilson picked over the food, tasting small portions of everything then waiting five minutes, before giving the mostly full tray to the kid.

Bucky was surprised to find that the boy only ate a few bites of everything before giving the tray back to his father. Wilson ate just as little, before he set the tray down outside their nest and slid it across the room.

The father and son curled up around each other in their nest, wings spread over them like a blanket of feathers. They barely moved for hours after, until the kid tapped his dad shoulder. Bucky watched the boy raise an awkward fist and do a twisting motion with his wrist. Bucky recognized the action for what it was, the ASL sign for bathroom, but he was surprised to see it being used by a toddler who’d spent his entire life in captivity. Wilson hesitated before leaving the nest and carried the boy to the bathroom, which had no cameras inside, and stayed in there with him the whole time.

While Wilson and the kid were in the bathroom, another SHIELD agent entered their room and took the food tray. The agent was gone before they left the bathroom, but as soon as Wilson stepped back into the room proper, he tensed and pushed his son back into the bathroom. He left the bathroom door cracked just a little as he walked a slow circuit around the room. He didn’t relax until he’d checked every cranny of the room that could possibly conceal a person. Finally, he went back to the bathroom, picked his son up in his arms, and carried him back to the nest.

Bucky sighed. Sometimes, no matter how thorough a job done on recon, there was no obvious way to move forward. He turned off the video feed on his tablet and started familiarizing himself with the files of information they’d retrieved from Hydra about what had been done to Wilson and the boy.

** … **

Wilson tracked his progress across the room with sharp eyes. Bucky tried to look casual and unassuming as he walked towards the man, taking in all of him with eyes just as sharp. Wilson was brown skinned and handsome. He looked healthier than most prisoners did after eight years of captivity, but Bucky was sure that was due to Hydra wanting to keep him in good enough health to survive all their experiments and his numerous pregnancies.

He was seated in his nest, and Bucky had to walk around the room and approach at an angle in order to have them fully in his sight, though Wilson had been able to see him clearly the moment he entered. The boy, his son— _their_ son, was sleeping pressed close to Wilson’s side, almost completely hidden from sight beneath one of his father’s wings. Wilson’s other wing was wrapped around himself, hiding his bare chest and round stomach from sight.

He came to a stop exactly five feet from Wilson, he would have preferred to give them six feet but the room wasn’t large enough. He stood casually with his hands at his side, making no quick or potentially threatening movements. It took everything in him not to continue his approach and pull Wilson into his arms. The moment he’d entered the room, his brain had been overloaded with the sense of _mate_ and _offspring_ and _mine, mine, mine._

He could _feel_ Wilson there in the back of his mind. It was faint, because their bond wasn’t all that strong. Some mates had bonds so strong they could communicate telepathically, but he and Wilson were nowhere near that level. It was inherently weaker by virtue of being a bond between just two people. Triad bonds were stronger, but Hydra probably thought it would be a bad idea to introduce a third variable into the equation. Still, the bond with Sam was present in a way that was undeniable. He felt a faint sense of anxiousness that he knew wasn’t his own, but that was all.

The bond with the boy was even fainter: there enough to tell him this child was his own, but not enough to know what he was thinking or feeling. Of course, the parental bond never fully converted to telepathy. According to what he’d read, at its strongest the bond between parent and child was largely one-sided, and came across only as a sense for knowing if the child was safe or not, and sometimes muted emotions.

Bucky took a deep breath, watched Wilson watching him, and finally said, “I brought him something.” He slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a small Hot Wheels car. “All kids need a toy, but I figured something small he could play with inside the nest would be preferable.” Wilson watched him place the car on the ground but said nothing. Bucky softly nudged the car forward with his foot so that it rolled closer to the nest. Wilson made no movement to grab it, it rolled to a stop just a couple of feet outside of the barrier of the nest.

Bucky brought his hands back to his sides and let them hang there limply. “Hi, I’m Bucky. I probably should have started with that, right? I don’t know if you know my name, because not too long ago, I didn’t even know my name. But, yeah, Bucky is what they call me.”

Wilson tilted his head to the side and looked Bucky up in down with obvious calculation in his gaze. Finally he relaxed his tense muscles and said, “I only ever called you ‘Alpha’ since you didn’t know your name at the time, and they only called you the Asset. I’m Sam.”

“I know,” Bucky said, “but only because the team that helped us save you has a hacker that made decrypting Hydra’s files look like child’s play. I don’t remember you or anything that happened between us.” Sam’s scent lacked the cloying sweetness Bucky had grown to associate with omegas, but that was probably due to the fact he wasn’t a true omega. He did have the robust scent of overturned earth. The fertile loamy smell of pregnancy and growing life.

“I know,” Sam said, something flashed across his face too fast for Bucky to read, but it left an aftertaste like swallowing down something bitter in their bond. “After they took you away, they would taunt and threaten me. They told me all about how they erased me from your memories, and how all they had to do was give the word and you’d look me in the eye and shoot me through the heart without ever realizing who I was to you.”

Bucky frowned and this time it was him coating their bond with a bitter aftertaste. “I’m sorry.”

“What for? You were as much a victim as I was. We were all victims.” His wing closed tighter around the boy, completely hiding him from sight now.

“What’s his name?” Bucky asked, staring at Sam’s wing as if he could see through it to his son underneath. He knew the name used for the boy in Hydra’s file, but he doubted it was the kid’s true name.

Sam raised his wing just enough for Bucky to see the boy’s sleeping face, before hiding him from sight again. “They called him Subject Adam, because he was meant to be the first of his kind.”

“But that’s not what you call him.” Bucky stated.

“ _We_ named him RJ. Riley James.”

Bucky looked up at Sam, startled. “James?”

“Yeah, after his father James Barnes. It’s amazing the things people will say in front of you when they think of you as nothing more than a lab rat. I only ever called you Alpha because _you_ didn’t know your name and they didn’t know I knew it. I named our son hoping it would help you remember who you were before.”

“Why show so much worry and concern for me when you were a prisoner, too?”

Sam was silent for a long moment, he stared down at the cloak of feathers around him and carded his fingers through their son’s hair. Finally, he looked back at Bucky and said, “Because you were good to me. I’d feared the worst. They’d forced me into Heat and locked me in a room with an unknown alpha. I was out of my mind, but knew enough to be terrified. But you didn’t hurt me. You didn’t pin me down and force yourself on me. You didn’t act like my body was your God-given right. You were still completely under their control at the time, and you had to be out of your mind with the amount of heat pheromones in the air, but you still treated me right.”

“I didn’t hurt you?” Bucky repeated, not quite believing the words.

Sam smiled though it tasted sour on their bond. “No, Bucky, you didn’t hurt me.”

It didn’t change anything, because nothing about their situation had called for consent, but knowing he hadn’t hurt Sam still felt like a large weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you,” he said, the words barely more than a whisper. And he didn’t know if he was thanking Sam for telling him that, or thanking God for making it so.

** … **

Bucky had his own bedroom in Avengers’ Tower where he stayed between missions, but sometimes he’d spend days, if not weeks, living in whichever SHIELD facility they were getting their orders from at the time. Steve and Natasha had both been sent out on another mission almost as soon as they’d landed, and Bucky had chosen to stay at SHIELD to wait for them. At least that was the excuse he’d given. Truth be told, he really just wanted to stay near Sam. He’d only just discovered his family, and he half expected them to disappear like a mirage if he looked away too long. So, he’d taken a room at SHIELD, simple base housing much like the room Sam and RJ were currently occupying.

Bucky was not fond of sleeping in unfamiliar places, but the rooms at the different SHIELD bases were all quite similar in design, making for an “if you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” feel that was almost comforting. Bucky had been sleeping in the room for about a week, though upon first glance, there was no sign the room was in any way inhabited. He was used to being a ghost. Occupying a space, but leaving no evidence of his existence.

Bucky paused upon stepping into the room. He glanced around slowly, left hand reaching for one of his concealed knives without thought. After taking in exactly what was out of place in the room, Bucky allowed himself to relax. “One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed.” He spoke to the room in general.

There was a muffled laugh, then a body dropped from the ceiling. “What gave me away this time?” Clint asked, landing in a crouch right in front of Bucky. He stood up straight and dusted himself off. Bucky glanced towards the bed.

“Really?” Clint said in disbelief. The bed was neatly made with tight corners and not a wrinkle in sight. The pillow lay innocently at the head of the bed, neatly placed and as smoothed over as the bedsheets. The excess fabric of the case laid straight and smooth over the mattress. Bucky always tucked the excess fabric under the pillow. “I half wanna call bullshit, but I’ve long since learned to not underestimate your attention to detail. Though, that still doesn’t say how you knew it was me.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and dragged his flesh fingers over the side of Clint’s neck. “You need to reapply your scent suppressor.”

Clint smirked. “Why would I do that when you’re just going to make me sweat it off?” He moved fully into Bucky’s personal space, his eyes holding a challenge as he met Bucky’s gaze.

Bucky kept his expression neutral as his gaze travelled over Clint’s body. The sweet and spicy scent of Clint’s omega pheromones filled the air. Bucky could feel the heat of Clint’s body on his skin, even though they weren’t touching.

He felt like he should turn him away. An image of Sam and RJ flashed in his mind. He should turn Clint away, or tell him about the family nesting in a room not too far from them. About the little boy with speckled wings, and the man who trusted him despite the circumstances that initially brought them together.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. He liked Clint. He liked Clint a lot. Sometimes, in the latest hours of the night, when Clint was curled up in bed next to him completely dead to the world, or when they were signing to each other over the breakfast table, or sitting in silence on Stark’s rooftop, the thought would enter his mind that he more than _liked_ Clint.

There was no label on the thing between them. They’d bonded over the shared experience of being the brainwashed puppets of megalomaniacs trying to take over the world. They’d struck up a good-natured rivalry over who was the best marksmen. They’d saved each other’s life once or twice.

They’d been friends. Clint was the first friend Bucky had made upon waking in the twenty-first century. And then they’d become lovers. Except, they’d never defined themselves as lovers. Clint had approached Bucky and asked him to keep him company during his Heat. And they’d kept sleeping together even after the Heat had ended. Bucky had made no move to define their relationship beyond that, and neither had Clint. Bucky liked what they had, and he didn’t want to lose it.

“Are you going to be around a while?” Bucky asked, his hands settling themselves on Clint’s hips and pulling the smaller man closer to him.

“I’m flying out to Mumbai tomorrow,” Clint informed him.

“Then you’re definitely wearing too many clothes right now.”

** … **

Bucky was woken by nightmares sometime in the early hours of the morning. It was a small blessing that he hadn’t woken Clint with his screaming and flailing. He vaguely recalled Clint taking off his ears before bed. It was only when he was truly exhausted that Clint slept without his hearing aids outside of the Tower. He trusted Bucky to hear any approaching danger, but he wanted to be able to hear if Bucky had a bad night of sleeping, so he could wake him and help him through it. Clint had his own share of night terrors, so Bucky hated waking him when he was sleeping soundly for once.

For a while, Bucky just laid there, staring into the darkness. He couldn’t recall what his nightmare had been about, but it obviously hadn’t been good. It was always like this: dreams of terrible things plagued his sleep, but slipped beyond his grasp when he woke, until something in the waking world triggered the memory.

Bucky sighed and pushed himself upright. He carefully leaned over Clint to grab his tablet off the bedside table. Sitting with his back pressed to the headboard, Bucky turned on the tablet. His fingers tapped the buttons needed to open the video stream for Sam’s room on their own accord.

It was five in the morning and he expected to find Sam sleeping. What he found instead was a desk lamp next to their nest turned on. Sam was awake, watching the door of the room with RJ curled up next to him. RJ slept facedown, with his knees drawn under him and his upper-body draped across a pillow. Similar to what Bruce had called “child’s pose” the day he’d convinced the Avengers to do yoga with him. RJ’s wings were unfurled and lying limp on either side of him.

Sam started to doze off as Bucky watched, but was startled awake in the next second as RJ started thrashing. Bucky felt as if something sharp had taken residence in his throat as he watched the toddler flailing and screaming, caught up in the throes of a nightmare. Sam had the boy in his arms and was rocking him while petting his hair within a few seconds. The black man looked utterly exhausted, but he didn’t let go of his son until the boy had fallen back into a calm sleep.

Next to Bucky, Clint mumbled something unintelligible. Before he realized what he was doing, Bucky was sliding his fingers through the archer’s hair. Clint stirred, looked up at Bucky, offered a sleepy smile, and went back to sleep pressed close to Bucky’s side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unmentioned details of this AU:
> 
> 1\. Steve and Natasha are in a Triad, though I'm undecided who their other partner is. I'm caught between Sharon and Maria. They are not actually bonded yet.  
> 2\. Since you're going to be seeing a little more of Jemma, you should know she's in a triad with Skye and Trip. They are bonded.  
> 3\. Fitz and Mack are a couple. They are not interested in making it a triad, though if the right person comes along you never know what'll happen. They are not bonded.  
> 4\. "Mate Bonding" can only take place if there is an alpha or an omega involved. A beta can bond to an alpha or omega (or as is most often the case, both), but they can't bond to other betas.  
> 5\. I'm probably going to add more unmentioned details to the notes of future chapters as I repeatedly bash my head against the wall and rewrite chapter 6 and beyond. (BTW, expect slower updates after chapter five because I'm rewriting chapter six and everything that comes after it.)


	3. If You Take My Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided at the last minute (and by last minute, I mean this morning) that I wanted to rewrite this chapter again. I ended rearranging the scenes, adding a few more paragraphs, and removing one scene all together. I hope that this resulted in a smoother, more natural looking progression of events. I'm still not completely satisfied with it, but it is better than it was before. 
> 
> I introduce an OC in this chapter. A psychiatrist. I'm sure the question will be raised as to why I didn't just use the same OC psychiatrist I used for Clint in the first fic in this series, and I honestly can't say why I didn't. Just roll with it.
> 
> I have been asked this a couple of times, so I'm going to bold this sentence so that it'll catch the attention of even the people who usually don't read the notes **Sam does remember Clint and Riley. He never had his memory wiped.** I mentioned in chapter one, a very brief mention easily overlooked in the infodump that was going on at the time, that Sam was resistant to have his mind altered. I said Hydra theorized that this was due to him being dual-dynamical. They tried to erase his memory at some point, but it didn't work.
> 
> Another thing to mention before the chapter begins, I say something about elephant in carnivals in this chapter that I pray you don't take at face value. It's something I read a long time ago that I have no idea if it's actually true or not, so don't quote me on it. It just fit with the analogy to accept it as fact.
> 
> Last thing, from now own, all the chapter titles will be lyrics from the songs in the [series playlist](http://8tracks.com/herlastsong/the-wild-winds-around-you). I've retitled the previous chapters to go with this as well. This chapter's title comes from the song "At This Point in my Life" by Tracey Chapman.
> 
> Last, last thing, Sam and Clint reunite in next week's chapter, just so you know.

**Chapter Three: If You Take My Hand (I Might Lead You Down the Path to Ruin)**

Sam had abandoned his desk chair on the other side of the room when he’d rearranged the furniture, so Bucky had grabbed the chair and dragged it into position where he could sit and still be able to see inside Sam’s nest. Bucky stayed seated in that chair and did not approach the nest. Approaching a distress nest without invitation often added to the nest-builder’s distress and could prompt them to attack.

Sam was still uneasy whenever anyone tried to enter the room. The twinge of anxiety at the back of his mind told Bucky that Sam wasn’t even completely at ease with him, but he accepted his presence. When Bucky wasn’t in the room, Sam split his attention between entertaining RJ, and wandering around the room, examining every inch of his new cell. Because surely that’s what Sam thought it was: a new prison. He never even tried to open the exit door. It was like what Clint had told Bucky about elephants in the carnival.

As a baby, the elephants were chained to a post in the ground and they weren’t strong enough to break free from. For a while, they would try to get free, test the limits of their bonds, and try to uproot the posts. Eventually they would give, lose hope. By the time they were full grown, the elephants could easily break free from a post in the ground if they tried. They never tried though, because they learned when they were young that doing so would be futile.

Sam never tried to turn the doorknob or leave the room, and neither did RJ, because they’d learned years ago that there was no escape. Bucky knew that the door wasn’t locked. He knew that if Sam and RJ wanted to leave, people would try to convince them otherwise but no one would actually stop them.

“You are safe here, you know,” Bucky said. Sam and RJ both glanced up at him.

RJ was pressed close to his father’s side, curled up beneath Wilson’s wing, sucking on two fingers and watching Bucky with wide eyes. He was a cute kid. He had dark hair seemingly about as long as Bucky’s, but its true length was concealed by its gravity defying springy curls. His eyes, previously summed up as hazel, were brown around the pupil and blue by the sclera and a kaleidoscope of colors in between, central heterochromia it was called. There was something of Bucky in the shape of his chin and the set of his eyes, but his features were too coated in the soft roundness of baby fat to show anything more than that. Bucky was happy to see that the Hot Wheels car he’d brought was being clutched tightly in the hand that wasn’t in the boy’s mouth.

There was another car in Bucky’s pocket, and he made sure to catch RJ’s eye before he pulled it out and set it on the floor. RJ pressed closer into Sam’s side instead of moving to grab the car.

 “Are we really?” Sam asked.

“You’re not a prisoner anymore,” Bucky told him.

“Are you sure about that?” He looked around the room, eyes lingering on the surveillance cameras, both the displayed ones and the concealed. Then he looked back at Bucky, who wasn’t exactly between him in the door, but was in a position to stop him if he tried to make a run for it.

Bucky shifted his chair a couple feet to open a wider path to the doorway, but still keep Sam in his sight. “No one’s going to force you to stay here.”

“But they will advise me that staying would be in my best interests.”

“If you don’t want to be here, I wouldn’t let them force you.”

“You really believe you could do something about it?”

“I know I could,” Bucky told him, “but I also know I won’t have to. You’re not a prisoner. The people here, SHIELD, they’re the good guys.”

Sam tilted his head and looked Bucky over carefully. “I believe that you believe that, but the truth is a matter of circumstance. You think that they’re the good guys now, but you know who else you told me were good? The people who kept me locked in that room for eight years, the ones who experimented on me and hurt my son to control my behavior. You only know what they tell you.”

Bucky frowned. “When Hydra had us, I wasn’t myself. I believed what they told me, because there was no evidence saying otherwise. They told me what I was doing was for the greater good, sometimes that was the only way they could get me to pick up a gun. Even when they erased my memories, I needed to know I was helping someone. Because there’s someone I know who embodies everything I believe is good, and even when I couldn’t remember him, I wanted to make him proud. And the truth is, he is working with SHIELD. And that’s how I know they’re good.”

For a long moment, Sam said nothing. He looked down at RJ in his arms, and plucked a loose feather from the boy’s wings, pulled his fingers from his mouth, and kissed the top of his head. When he finally spoke, Bucky felt absolutely nothing coming from their faint bond. No anxiety or anger or fear. Just a hollowness that chilled him to the core.

“He’s your true north and you’ll follow him anywhere, I get it. Once, there was someone who had as much faith in me as you have in him. The truth is, Riley would have followed me to the ends of the earth. But, instead he followed me to his death. The truth is, I don’t care if I’m safe here, or if I’ve just been moved to a prettier prison. The only thing keeping me from pitching a fit and going down swinging, is this little boy right here. You want to make sure I’m happy here? Just make sure they don’t take my son away.”

“I would never let them do that.”

** … **

Bucky had been on his way back to his room after visiting Sam when he’d been waylaid in the hall by an unexpected person. Her name was Sylvia Wolff. She was the agent in charge of the “hospitality team” looking after Sam and RJ. Doctor Sylvia Wolff, both a medical doctor and a psychiatrist.

Doctor Wolff was a small dark-haired woman that Bucky had only ever seen in passing. She was like Fitzsimmons: not cleared for field work, but in possession of a specialized skillset that made her invaluable to SHIELD in some way or other. Despite the fact that she was in charge of the team overseeing Sam and RJ’s stay at SHIELD, Bucky had never seen her actually enter the room with them (and he would have seen her a least once, given how often he watched the security feed.)

“I’m a specialist in human behavior,” she told Bucky. Bucky tried to casually scent and see if she was a beta or an omega, but all he could pick up was a strange peppery smell that made his nose itch. “The complete scope of what that means is pretty tedious and I’m sure you don’t want to hear it. Just rest assured, I’m doing everything within my ability to make sure your mate and son are made to feel welcome and secure here. I’m in charge of their meals, what agents are allowed to enter their room, and what those agents are allowed to say. The only person given unfettered access to them is you, Agent Barnes.”

“Sargent Barnes,” Bucky corrected just for the hell of it. Dr. Wolff had approached him wanting to know what it was he discussed with Sam during his visits. Bucky had avoided the question by asking her why she wanted to know.

“Sargent Barnes,” she repeated with a smile that was obviously fake. “My point is, repairing a human’s psyche is a delicate process. I need to know how your interactions with him go in order to direct my agents’ interactions. I’d prefer not to cause him further distress, you see. Like I said, it’s a delicate process. Everything from room temperature to lighting can affect how well they adjust to being here.”

Bucky scoffed. “They don’t need to adjust to being here. This is a temporary stop. They need to adjust to being free.”

Dr. Wolff offered a smile that was too patronizing for Bucky’s taste. “It’s my expert opinion that they are not ready for civilian interaction just yet. What they need now is pattern and stability. We here at SHIELD are best qualified to give them that.”

“You know who else are considered experts on human behavior? Assassins. You know what I’ve been for the last seventy years? An assassin. And it’s my expert opinion that continued life in a cage isn’t good for anyone.”

Sylvia Wolff straightened her back and met the glare Bucky had turned on her with a glare of her own. The air became thick with what Bucky thought was meant to be alpha intimidation scent, which was strange because Bucky had been sure she was an omega or beta. The smell made him want to sneeze more than it intimidated him. “Assassins and psychiatrists have very different takes on human behavior. It makes sense when you think about it. The outcome of an interaction with a psychiatrist is a longer, healthier life. The outcome of an interaction with an assassin is, well, a premature death.”

Bucky had the overwhelming urge to grab the knife sheathed in his boot and show Dr. Wolff just what the outcome of an interaction with a peeved assassin could be.

“There you are, Sargent Barnes,” Hill said, suddenly coming up behind Bucky. “I’ve been looking for you. Come with me.” He tone left no room for argument.

Bucky just looked at the doctor for a long, silent moment, before finally turning to face Hill. “Yes, ma’am,” he said with a forced calmness. His conversation with Dr. Wolff had left him more on edge than it should have.

Hill glanced at Dr. Wolff and gave her the small nod of acknowledgment, “Doctor,” she said in a clipped tone.

“Deputy Director,” Dr. Wolff smiled in a way that made Bucky was to claw he face off. Maria paid her no mind, she turned and walked down the hall and Bucky could only follow.

** … **

“How’s Mumbai?” Bucky asked before even saying hello. He was in his room, fresh from the shower and stretched out across his bed. Clint couldn’t have chosen a better moment to call if he’d timed it.

“Mumbai? Is that where I told you I was headed?” Clint asked. Bucky listened closely to his background and decided he was most likely in his hotel room or safe house. There was a noise that Bucky was almost positive was the sound of a coffee pot filling and another noise like creaking springs in a bad mattress.

“It’s a bad spy who can’t keep track of his cover story,” Bucky chided, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder as he reached for his tablet.

“Never thought of myself as a good spy. I’m just some orphan kid raised by carnies.”

“You do have a bad habit of selling yourself short.”

“Enough about me, let’s talk about you.” Clint’s tone dropped and Bucky could hear the bedsprings again. “What are you wearing?”

Bucky let out a snort of amusement. “Really, that’s what you’re gonna go with?”

Clint whined. “C’mon, work with me here. I’m a spy, not a poet.”

“Fine,” Bucky teased, “I’m wearing full combat gear.”

“That’s hot. How many weapons?”

“Eight knives, three guns.”

“Automatic?”

“Bolt action M98b sniper rifle, that little semi you like so much, and a pistol.”

Clint let out an appreciative moan. “Fuck that’s sexy. You know just how to get me hot and bothered.”

Bucky couldn’t maintain his composure any longer and burst into laughter. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

Clint laughed as well and Bucky could hear him pouring a cup of coffee. “You love me.”

Bucky was glad Clint wasn’t there to see the flush on his face. “Jury’s still out on that one.”

Clint let out a soft hum that could have been in appreciation of his coffee or acknowledgment of Bucky’s words. “Let me know the final verdict when it comes.”

“Will do,” Bucky said. His attention was mostly fixed on his tablet screen and the video feed of Sam and RJ. They were, of course, in their nest. RJ was rolling one of his toy cars over the walls in the corner and Sam’s attention was on his own tablet.

For a while, Bucky and Clint just listened to each other breathing as they each did their own thing. It wasn’t an unusual thing for them. Some of the best times they’d spent together involved them not speaking more than two words. It was Bucky who broke the silence this time. “Clint, do you…” he paused and reconsidered going forward with his question. “Do you ever think about having a family? Like kids and mates or whatever?”

Clint didn’t answer for a long time, and Bucky would have thought he’d hung up if not for the continued sound of his breathing on the other end of the phone. “Yeah, I think about it,” Clint finally said. “I think about having two or three kids and a house in the city, not the suburbs, and a visit to the farm at least once a year. And a private bonding ceremony instead of a big wedding and a small dinner with family and friends instead of an elaborate reception.”

There was something in his tone that Bucky couldn’t understand, it’s both fond and sad and Bucky regretted asking the question. There was another question on the tip of his tongue, but he bit it back and swallowed it down. He wanted to ask, but wasn’t sure if he wanted to know the answer, did Clint think about having these things with him?

He waited for Clint to ask a question instead. Waited for him to ask why Bucky was asking or if Bucky thought about these things. He waited for the moment when he had to tell the truth. Deception through omission was one thing, but Bucky would never outright lie to Clint if he could avoid it.

If Clint asked the right question, Bucky would tell him. Tell him about Sam and RJ and the baby on the way. And about his growing frustration at not remembering them. Because he’d remembered everything else from his time as Hydra’s Asset, but the fifteen months he’d spent with Sam were still a blank space in his mind. Bucky would tell Clint about the bond he shared with a man with wings and about buying toy cars for a boy who was his son. And he would tell Clint about how he wanted a family and he wanted that family to include Clint and Sam and RJ and the little one on the way. He would tell him everything if Clint only asked.

Clint didn’t ask.

** … **

The monthly status meetings had initially been instigated to track the progress being made in reestablishing SHIELD. They were now done as an attempt at transparency, since the major compartmentalization of information that had been used before had allowed for Hydra to fester within them. Complete transparency was neither possible nor logical, but there was more sharing of information between departments and a checks and balances system that made it so everyone answered to someone, even Fury.

Bucky wasn’t usually invited to attend these meetings, but an exception had been made given that Sam was one of the subjects to be discussed. Bucky had only visited Sam four times in the two weeks he’d been in SHIELD’s care and they’d all been short visits filled with stilted conversation cushioned by uncomfortable silences. Bucky doubted he would have much to add to the meeting. He resisted the urge to slouch down in his chair as other issues were discussed.

“I had an agent inside a known Hydra facility,” Hill reported. “A week ago, she missed a check in. There was three days of radio silence, and I was just about to send in an extraction team when she resurfaced. We have yet to figure out how exactly her cover was blown. I have two more agents on the inside of Hydra. I’ve checked in with both of them, and so far this looks like an isolated incident. We’ve decided against pulling them out.”

“Have they been able to supply any useful information?” Fury asked.

“It’s too soon to tell,” Hill informed him. “We’ve got nothing more than whispers at the moment. Continued observations is the best course of action.”

Fury nodded, then asked, “What about Wilson. Has he given us any information yet?”

Bucky sat up straighter in his seat and glanced around the room. Dr. Wolff was also in attendance and Bucky wasn’t sure if he or she was meant to answer the question.

“There’s not much to report on him at this time,” Dr. Wolff informed the room. “His behavior patterns are those of someone being kept in captivity. He’s distress nesting, distrustful of anyone who enters the room, he won’t take things being handed to him, won’t answer questions even if they’re about inconsequential topics. He hides his child and let’s no one near and he picks over food meticulously and makes sure he tastes all of it before feeding it to Adam.”

“His name’s not Adam,” Bucky interrupted.

Everyone turned to him with a questioning look. “Excuse me?” Dr. Wolff asked.

“The kid’s name isn’t Adam.”

She frowned and pulled up something on the tablet in her hands. “The file clearly states his name as Adam.”

Bucky glared. “ _Hydra’s_ files refer to him as ‘Subject Adam.’ That’s the name of their lab rat. It’s no more the kid’s name than my name is Asset.”

“Then what is his name?” Hill asked.

“RJ. Riley James Wilson.”

Dr. Wolff pursed her lips. “And you know this, how?”

“I asked Sam and he told me,” Bucky replied, with a tone that implied the answer should have been obvious.

Bucky couldn’t read the look Dr. Wolff shot him before she turned back to face Fury. “I’ve asked Sargent Barnes to work with me to improve the level of care Wilson is being given, as he is the only person who had actually had proper conversation with him, but Sargent Barnes was unwilling. I…”

Bucky cut her off. “You asked me to report to you everything Sam and I say to each other, and I refused because that would be breeching the trust I’m trying to build between us. I’m sure you realized the reason Sam is still distress nesting and not responding to your questions is because he does not trust you. He has no idea where he is. There’s been no sign that he or his son is safe here.”

“We told him that he’s in SHIELD’s care,” Wolff said.

“I doubt he knows what SHIELD is,” Natasha said before Bucky could. “We didn’t go public until the invasion in New York, during which time Wilson was already in captivity. As far as he knows, SHIELD could be the name of the people who’s had him all along.”

“What do you propose we do then?”

Steve answered, “He’s missed out on the last eight years of life, give him something to help him reconnect to the world. A sign of good faith.”

“We need to know what he knows,” Fury stated.

“But you’re not going to get that until he trusts you,” Bucky retorted.

** … **

They gave Sam a Stark-Pad tablet. Bucky had no doubt that an agent had been assigned to monitor just what Sam did with that tablet, but at least it was a step in the right direction.


	4. Show Me Where My Armor Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Two Quick Apologies:** first, sorry this chapter is late. I was sick yesterday and didn't have to the mental ability needed to finish cleaning up this chapter and sewing the plot holes created by the last minute rewrite of chapter 3. Second, I gave you all some false information. I said Clint and Sam would reunite in this chapter, and that is not the case. I'd said that without actually looking at the chapter, relying on my memory which tends to fail me. This story was originally written as a one-shot and I'd forgotten where I'd added chapter breaks. It's actually **next week's chapter** that they see each other again. Sorry for the misinformation, and sorry if it feels like I'm dragging this out forever. 
> 
> Third apology, I forgot a tag on this fic. Not a major tag, just the tag "comic book science" which basically means, don't question me about how this shit works, just accept that it does. That tag really applies to this chapter. Though I did end up removing the main reason for it. (I was going to have the feathers of Sam's wings have the ability to turn razor sharp and be used as a weapon, but decided against it.) But I did leave in another little detail that was actually mentioned in the first chapter, but I wouldn't be surprised if most of you overlooked or otherwise rationalized it. Now that it's being mentioned in an undeniable way, rationalize it as "comic book science" and call it a day.
> 
> Chapter title is from the song Pluto by Sleeping at Last. (Which is the most "Bucky Barnes" song in existence don't dare tell me otherwise.)

**4\. Show Me Where My Armor Ends (Show Me Where My Skin Begins)**

Bucky was strapped into the back of an airplane piloted by the Widow the first Sam and RJ left their nest for more than a trip to the bathroom. Bucky had brought his tablet and was watching the security footage of their room like he was wont to do.

RJ’s walk was still more wobbly than steady, but Sam held his hands and helped him make a circuit around the room. Then he walked backwards a few steps ahead of the toddler as RJ walked alone. It was like watching a baby take their first steps. RJ seemed unbalanced and unsure of himself, but Sam urged him on.

After another circuit, the two of them stood in the cleared center of the room. Sam spread his wings. The outside of Sam’s wings were a dark blue-gray color, and the inside were a barred white and brown shade. The information Bucky had found said they closely resembled the wings of a peregrine falcon. His wingspan was close to fourteen feet, each wing over six-feet long. When they were folded close to his back, the size of them were greatly understated. But when he spread them like this, it was awe-striking.

RJ mimicked Sam’s action, spreading his own small wings. RJ’s wings were more white than black, those of a gyrfalcon. The size of his wings wasn’t concealed even when drawn close to his body. RJ was barely four feet tall, and wingspan was more than double that. His file said the toddler had remarkable strong, but hollow bones. This made him weigh much less than a child his age should, but he was still in good health.

The files also said that Sam caused himself an alarming amount of muscle damage whenever he flew with his wings, due to the strain of supporting his weight. They couldn’t hollow his bones, but they could accelerate his healing. The initial assumption had been that the alien tech that had prompted the growth of the wings would also take care of any damage the wings caused to Sam’s body. When that had been disproven, they’d opted for human technology instead.

They’d screwed with the pain receptors attached to the muscles so he couldn’t actually feel them tearing. And they’d enhanced his healing, though the file hadn’t gone into detail on exactly how they’d done that. So flying caused Sam terrible muscle damage, but he couldn’t feel it and it healed overnight. His hearing and sight had been enhanced by the avian DNA and alien technology. For all intents and purposes, Sam was a super solider and every way except that added strength and speed.

RJ had actual super soldier serum in his genetics, further enhanced by his avian DNA. When he grew up, he would probably be stronger than Bucky and maybe even Steve. Sam, as he was, could probably hold his own against the super-soldiers for a while, but would eventually be overpowered.

Sam shook out his wings and did a full body shimmy while making a face that made RJ giggle. RJ’s smile was bright as sunshine and completely contagious. Bucky found himself smiling in sync with Sam at the boy’s giggles. Sam shook out his wings again, and this time RJ copied the action.

For the next thirty minutes, Sam led their son through exercising his wings: stretching them, flapping them, letting them catch the air as he jumped from small heights. He kept the boy smiling and laughing the whole time, and Bucky couldn’t look away.

RJ only lost his smile when Sam sat him in the center of the room and started coaching him through what looked to be yoga breathing. Bucky realized what was going on when Sam’s wings seemed to simply melt out of existence. He hadn’t seen Sam without his wings since the brief moment he first saw him back at the Hydra base. He’d never seen RJ without his wings. He’d actually forgotten they were retractable.

RJ’s face screwed up in concentration as Sam talked him through hiding his wings. The toddler did not seem to enjoy the experience at all. Sam brought his wings back out and slowly retracted them again for RJ to watch. It took RJ almost fifteen minutes to get his wings to go away. There was a further fifteen minutes of RJ walking around the room without the weight of the wings on his back. It took less than one minute for the toddler to bring his wings back out when his father told him he could.

“Bucky, we’re landing soon,” Steve said. Bucky looked up from his tablet and glance around. He could feel the plane going into descent. He sighed and put away his tablet and pushed his thoughts away from Sam and RJ. All his attention needed to be on the mission.

** … **

A lot of dangerous objects had been stolen from SHIELD while they were still trying to weed out all of Hydra. One such object was being moved to an undisclosed location to be sold in a black market auction. Captain, Widow, and Bucky were given the task of making sure it never reached that location. The mission was simple: secure the object and take down any opposition with as few casualties as possible.

They’d arrived to their destination and hunkered down, looking for any signs of movement. “Hill, this is a bust,” Widow said into her comm after they’d been waiting for almost an hour passed the time they’d been told to expect action, “There’s no one here.”

Hill let out a string of curses. “Proceed to the extraction point and get your asses back here as soon as possible.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve said. They followed the order and Natasha flew them back to base. Hill was waiting for them when they landed. She looked furious and ordered them to follow her in clipped, no-nonsense tones.

She stormed right into Fury’s office with the three of them on her tail. Fury looked up from whatever it was he was doing, took in Hill’s expression, and said, “Secure office.”

After the Hydra infiltration, Tony Stark had taken over SHIELD’s security, even going so far as to have his AI Jarvis installed in certain parts of their system. “Office secured, sir,” Jarvis said after the windows blackened and almost all of the electronics in the room turned themselves off.

“What’s going on?” Fury asked Hill.

“We have a mole,” Hill stated.

Fury leaned forward in his chair with his arms crossed. “You’re sure about that?”

“Someone has been tipping Hydra off whenever I plan a mission. The last four Hydra locations I’ve sent teams to turned up hastily departed buildings and destroyed evidence. Two of my agents in deep cover got made. One of them didn’t escape with his life. Someone knows things they shouldn’t, and they’ve been blowing covers and spilling secrets.”

“A Hydra spy within SHIELD?” Steve asked with disbelief.

“It makes sense,” Widow said. “We managed to infiltrate them while they were regrouping, why couldn’t they do the same to us?”

“Except there’s meant to be safeguards preventing that from happening again.” Fury’s eye flicked briefly towards Bucky, then back to Hill.

Hill shook her head. “It’s not Barnes. Every second of his day is accounted for.”

Bucky didn’t know if he was more amused or annoyed by the fact that, even after a year, he was still being watched and distrusted by the rebuilt SHIELD.

“It’s not Barnes,” Hill repeated. “It’s not any of my men. The only field agents I didn’t personally clear are the ones on Coulson’s team, because I trust his judgment. It’s not a field agent, it’s someone here. And you’re going to find out who it is before my men walk into a trap instead of an empty building.”

Fury sighed. “There’s only so much I can do without good information. And with so many covers being blown, I’m not getting much of that.”

“What about Wilson?” Natasha asked. “He must know something. Is he talking yet?”

“Dr. Wolff says he’s still as distrusting and tightlipped as he’d been since he got here. She would like to run a few tests on him as well, but getting him to consent to them looks unlikely.”

“Maybe it’s not Dr. Wolff that needs to be asking the questions.” Natasha turned to face Bucky with her arms crossed over her chest and a single eyebrow raised. Everyone else turned to look at him as well.

“I’ll talk to him,” Bucky said. “But I can’t promise anything.”

…

"Do you trust me?" Bucky asked Sam.                           

He looked up at Bucky's question, but did not answer right away. For a long moment, all Bucky felt from him was a muted sense of deep thought. Finally he said, "No."

"No?" Bucky repeated, caught off guard by Sam's blunt honesty.

"No," Sam said once more. "I trust that us being mated makes you disinclined to cause me any form of harm. I trust that the parent-child bond makes you willing to risk life and limb to protect RJ. I trust that if you ever came at us in a frenzy, I could stop you. I trust my mate, because I trust biology. But, no, I do not trust Bucky Barnes. I don't really know him."

Bucky frowned. "It's hard to know a man who barely knows himself."

“I think you know yourself more than you let on. You’re just scared of what you know.”

“Are you scared of me?”

“Is there a reason I should be?”

Bucky offered no answer.

“They want information from me, don’t they?” Sam asked after the silence hung between them for long enough to be considered uncomfortable.

Bucky frowned but nodded. Sam and RJ were in their nest. RJ was seated between Sam’s spread legs, letting his father weave his hair into a million little plaits. “I wouldn’t let them interrogate you, but we’d like it if you shared any information you might have with us. Also, if you would consent to a few tests.”

Sam looked up and set Bucky with a sharp gaze. “I refuse to be made into someone’s science experiment again.”

“You really think I would let them do that?”

Sam stared a Bucky for a long silent moment. “I think you overestimate your own capabilities.”

“I think the opposite. I know the reach of my capabilities. I think you underestimate me and yourself.”

Sam focused on braiding his son’s hair instead of replying. RJ didn’t talk much. Bucky had never heard him speak more than a few words, but Bucky was sure that was due to choice rather than inability. According to Hydra’s files, RJ’s intelligence had been enhanced along with the rest of him. He sometimes curled up with his ear pressed to Sam’s stomach and mumbled soft words to his unborn sibling. Bucky had also witnessed him signing to Sam on a few occasions. At the moment, he was rolling a car from his quickly growing collection over his thighs and humming softly to himself while his dad’s hands moved through his hair.

“I want to talk to my mom,” Sam finally said.

“What?”

“My mother. I’ve been missing for eight years, she probably thinks I’m dead. I want her to know that I’m okay, and I want to know that she’s okay.”

“Is that a good idea?”

“Probably not, but when you’re locked in a cage for eight years, you spend a lot of time thinking about what you’d do if you ever got free. One of the things I wanted to do was hear my mother say she loves me one more time. To see her and hug her and tell her I’m sorry for all the pain I caused. You let me talk to my mother, and I’ll answer all their questions and consent to all their tests, and maybe even start believing you when you say I’m safe here.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

** … **

Bucky did not watch Sam while he was on video call with his mother. The black man was given only an hour to talk to her, and Bucky allowed him his privacy. Bucky walked with them from their room to the room the video call would take place in. Sam had spent the morning coaxing RJ into hiding his wings, so they both looked normal when they entered the room for the call.

Sam left the room with red eyes, a watery smile and exposed wings, clinging tightly to his son. RJ’s wings were also out and his face was buried against Sam’s neck.

Bucky escorted them back to their room. The trip was silent and marked by curious SHIELD agents trying to catch sight of the man with wings. When they reached the room, Sam settled RJ into their nest. It was only when RJ rolled onto his side and snuggled into a pillow that Bucky realized he was asleep. Sam covered their son in a blanket, but left the nest to join Bucky on the other side of the room.

“I don’t know much,” he said, “but I’ll tell you all that I do.”

He was right, he did not know much. The original purpose of the base called the Menagerie was to reverse engineer the super soldier serum used in Bucky by extracting it from Bucky’s blood, and the blood of fetus fathered by him. Bucky had fathered a lot of test tube fetuses, none of which lived very long. They still hadn’t come close to recreating the serum, but they continued these experiments out of habit more than anything. Sam knew this because of a few overheard conversations between scientists, and because he’d briefly shared a cell with a man who was later injected with one of these failed serums. The man had suffered a long, painful death and Sam had watched it all happen.

The animal/human experiments were started by a Japanese scientist by name Hiroto Tsukuda after Hydra came to be in possession of some kind of alien artifact, though Sam hadn’t known that they’d meant literal aliens when they’d said this. Dr. Tsukuda had personally overseen the experiments done on Sam. Sam had seen him often. “Until about a year ago,” Sam said. “The last time I saw him, he mentioned a business trip. The woman who took over my care after Tsukuda had a thick accent I could never place. Her name was Farkas, I think she was an alpha, but I was never sure because her scent always seemed wrong for some reason. I already knew who she was because she was in charge of RJ. She was heartless. Everything done to RJ was by her orders.”

Other than the failed serum patient and the scientists, the only person Sam had regular contact with was RJ and even that was limited. He didn’t know who any of the other prisoners were, or what kind of experimentation they were being subjected to. He had no idea they were all killed the day he was rescued, or why only him and RJ were spared. He did give a few more names that he’d learned during his captivity.

Bucky thanked him for his information, then passed it all along to Hill.

** … **

Clint called him at some odd hour of the night that had found Bucky awake due to nightmares. Clint was still on his classified mission in a classified location tasked with taking down a classified organization responsible for a classified number of crimes. Bucky had happily broken the tedium of _classified_ to coax Clint into some proper phone sex.

There had been something exciting in the way Clint had muffled his moans to avoid giving away his stakeout location and the knowledge that Clint had called in from a SHIELD phone that was probably being monitored by some poor sap in communications. Clint had let out a moan that gave Bucky shivers when he reached his orgasm.

They drifted into silence after a while. Bucky cleaned himself up with a handful of Kleenex from the bedside table and slumped back against his pillows. All he could hear from Clint’s end of the phone was breathing. He imagined the archer perched on a rooftop watching a still house, and twirling an arrow between his fingers. The image brought a smile to Bucky’s face, but after a while it wasn’t enough to keep his thoughts from spiraling.

Bucky let out a huff and rolled over to grab his tablet off the nightstand. It had been six weeks since Sam and RJ had been taken into SHIELD’s care, and almost as long since Bucky had last seen Clint in person. Opening the video stream to Sam’s room something he could do with his eyes closed by this point. He expected to find his mate and son sleeping, or just RJ sleeping and Sam keeping a nighttime vigil. What he found instead was Sam building towers with RJ’s blocks, and RJ knocking them down with his dump truck.

The toddler was giggling as he quickly destroyed his father’s hard work. Sam just looked amused. As Sam grabbed RJ and pinned the toddler to the mattress of their nest with a tickle attack, Bucky realized something that had always been hiding in a dark corner of his mind. He liked Sam. He really liked Sam.

“Clint,” Bucky said, breaking the silence between him and his lover. They’d never discussed becoming a triad, because they’d never discussed being a couple. But Bucky watched Sam’s smiling face on the screen and listened to Clint’s soft breathing in his ear and he wanted. “Do you know when you’ll be back? There’s something I need to tell you and I would prefer saying it face to face.”

 


	5. Like a Final Puzzle Piece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is also from Pluto by Sleeping at Last

**5\. Like a Final Puzzle Piece (It All Makes Perfect Sense to Me)**

“This is Steve,” Bucky said. “My oldest friend.”

“Your true north,” Sam stated. RJ had been playing on the other side of the room, but Sam had called him back to the nest as soon as the door had opened. The toddler was pouting, but had obediently gone to this father’s side.

Bucky smiled and nodded. “My true north.”

Steve brow furrowed in confusion, but it was quickly replaced by an easy smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Sam.” Bucky was happy to note he didn’t offer his hand to shake, because that would mean crossing the unmarked perimeter of Sam’s nest. An unfamiliar person getting too close to Sam’s nest would undoubtedly not end well. Shaking hands with Sam would have been difficult for Steve anyway, given that his hands were currently full.

“Nice to meet you as well, Steve. Or do you prefer Captain America?”

Steve let out a short laugh. “Steve will do just fine.”

Sam nodded and nudged RJ. “Little Bird, say hello to our guest.”

RJ had curled up in the nest, stuck two fingers in his pouting mouth, and started playing with one of his toy cars. He glanced up at Steve, then turned his attention back to his toy without saying a word.

“RJ,” Sam said in a chastising tone, but the toddler just continued rolling his car back and forward. Sam sighed. “You’ll have to forgive him. He’s not very fond of strangers and we’re both going a little stir crazy in here.”

Steve gave his sunniest smile. “It’s perfectly fine. But I did bring him something, if that’s okay.” He set the toy he’d brought, a magnetic drawing board, on the floor and nudged it towards the nest.

“Always a toy for the tyke, never anything for Sam.” There was a teasing amusement in Sam’s voice as he said it.

Steve grinned. “As it so happens, I did pick up something for Sam.”

“Please tell me it’s that bag of grease, because it’s been eight years since I tasted McDonald’s fries, but a true American will never forget that smell.”

Steve laughed. Two minutes later, they were all sitting around the nest stuffing their faces with the unhealthiest food in the world, and Steve and Sam were talking like old friends.

** … **

The next time Bucky visited Sam, the furniture that had concealed his nest had been moved. There was still the mattress and blankets in the corner of the room, but the furniture no longer stood as a barricade between them and the door. The significance of this was not lost on Bucky.

Sam had made their nest out of distress. He was dual-dynamical, not an omega. He didn’t have the nesting extinct that came with pregnancies, but the nesting that came from needing an easily defensible area to protect his family. The moving of the furniture signified Sam feeling more at ease in his environment. He no longer felt the need to stand on guard.

But what made Bucky really smile was the fact Sam didn’t huddle RJ into the nest as soon as Bucky entered the room. RJ was taking wobbly steps around the room and stretching his wings, while Sam sat in their nest occupying himself with his tablet. Usually, Sam didn’t allow RJ to stray from his side if someone else was in the room, but all he did at Bucky’s entrance was look up and track RJ’s movements for a few seconds.

Bucky took a seat in his usual chair and watched his son for a few silent minutes. He almost didn’t want to broach the topic he’d been mulling over since his last conversation with Clint. Sam and RJ were in this moment, if not happy, then at the very least at peace. It was a fragile peace that Bucky didn’t want to disrupt, but his curiosity (for lack of a better word) was getting too much.

He turned to Sam and asked, “Can you tell me about Riley? Your Riley, not RJ.”

Sam sat down his tablet and looked up a Bucky with what might have been a frown weighing the corners of his mouth. “Why do you want to know?”

There were many reasons Bucky wanted to know about Riley the main one being, because it was obvious Sam had loved him. Loved him enough to give his name to Bucky’s son. He wanted to know what kind of man was worthy of such love. What kind of man did he need to be to earn Sam’s love? He answered, “Because he was important to you.” And Bucky wanted to learn everything about everything Sam thought was important. “And because I like you, Sam. I really like you, but I feel like we hardly know each other. And that’s mostly my fault because there’s so much I don’t remember, but I want to learn you again.”

Sam didn’t say anything for a long while, and Bucky wondered if he’d made a mistake in asking, but finally Sam told him, “The first thing you need to know is that we were a triad, not a couple. It was me, Riley, and another guy called Hawk. Hawk was an independent contractor that was hired to aid us a few missions. I loved him almost instantly and Riley loved him just as much. The two of them… they were my best friends. For a while, I thought I would marry them.” And then he started telling Bucky about the first time he’d met Riley and every second they shared after.

There was a sadness coming from Sam’s end of their mating bond. But the more he talked, and he had a lot to say, about Riley and Hawk, the more that sadness was overshadowed by other emotions. Fondness. Joy. Amusement. Love.

“So, there we were, in the middle of the desert, skin to the wind, and our CO rides up in a Humvee. I’m freaking out, trying to find where my clothes were, but they…”

At some point during the recounting of his adventures with Riley and Hawk, Sam motioned Bucky over to sit on the floor in front of the nest, across the unmarked boundary line surrounding the nesting area. When RJ grew tired of his wandering, he took a seat next to Bucky and occupied himself with his small pile of toys, which had grown to include a handful of plastic soldiers and a coloring book along with his cars and trucks. Sam was still talking when RJ dozed off, slumped against Bucky’s side. Bucky’s heart nearly stopped beating in his chest when the boy laid against him so casually, but Sam just looked at them with a soft smile and one hand resting over his round belly as he continued his anecdote.

Between one breath and the next, all the happiness he’d felt building within Sam was gone. “Three days later, he fell and all I could do was watch. And then, before I could think of how to go forward, I was captured.”

“What happened to Hawk?” Bucky asked.

Sam shrugged. “It’d been months since we’d last seen him when it happened. I’ve looked for him online since I got here, but…”

“You’ve told me all of this before, haven’t you?”

Sam nodded. “I have.”

“I’m sorry I don’t remember. And I’m sorry you lost him, both of them, but especially Riley,” Bucky said. “It sounds like he was a great person. I would have liked to meet him.”

“He was great,” Sam said. “A complete dumbass sometimes, but great. He made us promise that if he didn’t make it home, we would call his mother every Christmas, take flowers to his grandmother’s grave on Valentine’s day, friend his sister on Facebook and poke her every week, and most importantly let go and live our fucking lives, even if it meant breaking all the other promises.” He sighed. “I did find his sister’s Facebook, but I haven’t friended her.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m eight years late. Because I’m not the same person I was back then. I’m not the man Riley and Hawk wanted to marry. I’m not a good person anymore. When I was locked up in there… I spent a lot of time thinking, you know. Thinking and wishing and regretting. And I kept wondering ‘why me?’ You know. Both Riley and I were flying that mission, why’d they kill him and take me? Death was the preferable fate. Coming out of it and looking back from this end, I wouldn’t wish what I went through on my worst enemy, but while I was in there, I was wishing it on the man I loved.”

“That’s not your fault, Sam.” Bucky said, staring into the man’s teary eyes to press his point. “You were a prisoner. You were suffering untold horrors. Coming out of that unscathed would have been impossible. No one is going to blame you for breaking. You talk to Riley’s sister, and she’ll tell you the same thing. It wasn’t your fault.”

“What would I even say to her?”

“You could start with ‘hi, I’m Sam’ and see where it goes from there.”

** … **

Simmons smiled her usual infectious smile and Bucky watched as some of the discomfort melted off of Sam’s face. “It’s understandable that you’re a bit wary of being poked with needles,” Simmons said in her lilting British accent. “I really only need a small sample.” Bucky had personally chose her and Fitz when Sam consented to having some tests done. He knew Fitzsimmons and trusted them with his mate and child. He’d passed on his choice and made it known he would accept no substitute, especially if there really was a mole hiding within SHIELD.

RJ’s head was resting on Sam’s shoulder with his legs wrapped around the man’s waist, he blinked at Simmons with his large hazel eyes and said around the two fingers he had put in his mouth, “You talk funny.”

Simmons giggled. “To me, you talk funny. It’s called an accent.”

“Accent,” RJ repeated, lisping the two ‘C’s into a sibilant ‘S’ sound.

“You’ll speak clearer with your fingers out of your mouth,” Sam stated, grabbing RJ’s small wrist and gently pulling it away from his mouth.

RJ didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t put his fingers back in his mouth.

Sam just smiled at him fondly. “Just a small sample?” He asked Simmons.

She nodded eagerly. “We were able to uncover the files detailing the exact process of what Hydra did to you. They exposed you to an alarming amount of radiation and other hazardous material in order to make your body accept the foreign DNA. Not to mention unstudied alien technology. I just want to make sure there weren’t any lasting consequences.”

“You mean like the wings that grew from my back.”

Simmons blushed. “I meant undocumented consequences, but I guess you’re correct that the wings are pretty lasting.”

Sam smiled and Bucky felt something inside of him crack a little bit. “I was just teasing, Ms. Simmons.”

Simmons blushed more. “Please, just Jemma.”

Sam’s smile broadened, “Alright, Jemma, but only if you call me Sam. And I guess a few more needle pokes wouldn’t be so bad. Right RJ?”

RJ suddenly turned and outstretched his arms towards Bucky in a way that obviously meant he wished to be moved into his arms, running away from Sam and his ideas about being poked with needles. Sam laughed, but seemed to have no problem with passing his son to Bucky.

Bucky had never actually held RJ after the day they’d rescued him. Without the adrenaline rush of being inside a building about to be blown up, Bucky found himself very unsure about holding a tiny person. RJ smiled up at him and rested his butt on the curve of Bucky’s metal arm, before sticking his two fingers back into his mouth. Bucky stared down at him, at a loss for what to do. RJ fanned his wings out like stretching a limb, then let them droop behind him as he contently laid his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

A rush of warmth spread through Bucky and he offered an approximation of a smile to the toddler. He shifted RJ from his arm to his hip and turned his attention back to Sam and Simmons. Sam was seated on Simmons’ lab table with a tourniquet already wrapped around his arm, while Simmons was rubbing an alcohol swab over the exposed vein.

She ended up taking four vials of blood before letting Sam hop down from the table. “Your turn, little guy.” Simmons said to RJ.

RJ looked from Simmons to Sam to Bucky with a small frown. He drew his drooping wings up against his back and said around his fingers, “okay.” He didn’t even fight when Bucky sat him down on the table. There was a queasy feeling in Bucky’s stomach as he watched how calmly RJ handled having his blood drawn. He’d never seen a child not put up a fuss about being stabbed with needles, yet RJ acted as if it was no big deal. He was obviously used to being poked and prodded. He didn’t as much as whimper.

“All done,” Simmons said with false cheer, sticking a Captain America print Band-Aid over the pinprick. She was obviously thinking the same as Bucky. “Whenever I saw a doctor when I was little, he always gave me a lollipop.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bright red candy. “Here ya, go. It should taste a lot better than your fingers.” RJ looked first at Sam, then at Bucky, before taking the candy. He looked at Sam again and waited for the small nod Sam gave, before opening it and putting it in his mouth.

RJ smiled. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” Simmons said with a smile that was more sad than anything. “I’m going to need a sample from you as well, Sargent Barnes.” She added.

“Me?” Bucky asked in surprised.

Simmons nodded. “I want to analyze the difference between the serum in you and what your son inherited. Just a small sample.”

Sam let out an amused noise. “Blood testing, a family affair.”

Bucky snorted and ignored the way his heart pounded at the sound of Sam calling them a family. He obediently rolled up his right sleeve for Simmons. She took just as much blood from him as she had from Sam.

“Alright,” Simmons said, removing the tourniquet from Bucky but not bothering with bandaging him, given how quickly he healed. If RJ really had inherited the serum from Bucky, he probably didn’t need the Band-Aid either. “Just one last thing, Sam, we do have the equipment to perform an ultrasound if you wish to check the progress of the baby.”

Sam’s hand moved to rest over the roundness of his stomach without him even seeming to think about it. He looked as though the idea of seeing his baby before it was born was a foreign concept to him. Which made sense when you realized his five previous pregnancies happened while under study in a lab; Sam knowing how the baby was doing hadn’t been as important as Hydra knowing how the baby was doing.

“According to the file, you should be past the twenty weeks mark,” Simmons continued, “So we should even be able to tell the gender with some degree of certainty. We should also start discussing birthing plans and whatnot. Mind you, I’m not actually qualified as an obstetrician. I have two PhDs, but I’m not a medical doctor.”

“Is it important that we do it now?” Sam asked with a frown.

“It doesn’t have to be right this second,” Simmons said, “but it would be a good idea to do it soon.”

Sam reached out his arms for RJ and the toddler immediately went to him. Sam spread his wings and wrapped them around himself and his son. “I’d rather not today, if that’s okay with you.”

Bucky frowned. He recalled Skye saying that RJ had been used as a way to control Sam. A reward and punishment system for his behavior. Sam had made sure RJ was in his arms and shielded beneath his wings before he’d refused Simmons. He’d made sure RJ couldn’t easily be taken from him and hurt before making a decision.

“It’s completely up to you,” Simmons said, and her tone reflected Bucky’s thoughts.

“Not today,” Sam repeated.

“In that case, that’s all then.” Simmons said, her smile held firmly in place.

Less than a minute later, Bucky was walking Sam and RJ back to their room. As they rounded a corner, a voice called out “Bucky!”

Bucky was already smiling when the turned to greet the person running up behind them.

“Clint?” Sam spoke, utter disbelief in his tone. There was a feeling like the floor as just dropped from beneath his feet that Bucky wasn’t sure was coming from his or Sam’s end of their bond.

“Sam.” Clint had frozen in his tracks and looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not satisfied with this chapter, but we're not gonna get into why. I just wanted to say one quick clarification thing, when Sam is telling Bucky about Riley and Hawk, yes "Hawk" is Clint and yes Sam is aware that's not Clint's real name and yes Sam does know Clint's real name, that was not a typo at the end. Sam's not supposed to know Clint's real name, but they were in love so a rule was broken. But just because Sam knew Clint's real name does not mean he allowed to share it with other people. That's why he only referred to him a Hawk during that conversation.
> 
> One more thing **I cannot promised that chapter 6 will be posted next week. I am no longer certain I'll be able to post regular updates at all.** I am now pretty much writing this as I go along instead of just rewriting already finished stuff. I beg thee be patient with me.
> 
> Last thing, should Sam to have a boy or a girl?


	6. Out of the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My favorite scene in this entire fic is in this chapter. I might have mentioned that when I originally started writing this fic, it was just Bucky/Sam. After writing the first scene of this chapter, I wanted to make it Steve/Bucky/Sam instead, but I talk myself out of it. Two days later, I could not talk myself out of making it Clint/Bucky/Sam (thus rewrite number 3 began and I write that first prequel). 
> 
> This is that last of my pre-written chapters, and I kinda don't want to post it because I'm not nearly satisfied enough with it, but that's whatever. I'm having trouble deciding exactly how to move forward (I got the idea to take it in a certain direction, but I'm not sure how they would play out with the other things going on, but if I don't move it in the direction, the fic might meet an unsatisfying end...)
> 
> So, like I said, I can no longer promise regular updating. Which means there's now a large possibility that I will go months between updates like I do with my other fics. Sorry in advance.

**6\. Out of the Darkness (and Into the Light of the Day)**

“You know those things can kill you,” Steve said, lowering himself to sit next to Bucky’s sprawled form on the rooftop.

Bucky let out an amused snort and took another long drag of his cigarette. “Make that sound like a bad thing.”

“Don’t you think it’d be ironic?” Steve asked, stealing the cigarette from Bucky’s hand and taking a drag himself. “Bucky Barnes survived seventy years of being shot at, but meets his death from a bit of rolled tobacco.”

“Anything less than going out in a blaze of light would be a disappointment.” Bucky pushed himself into an upright position and stole the cigarette from between Steve’s lips. “No smoking for Captain America, it doesn’t go well with his wholesome family image.”

Steve rolled his eyes and stole the pack and lighter from the ground next to Bucky. “I was smoking asthma cigarettes long before Captain America was even born.”

Bucky let himself fall back flat against the roof again. He heard the flick of the cigarette lighter and the soft crinkle of the paper catching flame. Back in the day, Bucky didn’t start smoking until after he’d enlisted and seen action on the battlefield, and Steve only ever smoked when he genuinely needed it for his asthma, but somehow this still felt familiar. He and Steve under a bright blue sky, the smell of smoke lingering in the air. It was almost comforting.

“So, what brings you out here?” Steve asked.

Bucky rolled over and flopped on his stomach. He outstretched an arm over the rooftop and pointing to a small area of green land at the edge of the land boundaries. Three people, two adults and a child, could just barely be made out. Bucky didn’t think RJ’s feet had so much as skimmed the grass in the past five minutes. His wings were spread wide and flapping persistently to keep him in the air. Sam would join him in the sky a few minutes at a time, letting out loud whoops of joy as he flew higher and higher and dived backed down. The first time he’d done it, Bucky barely kept himself from leaping off the rooftop and running across the yard to catch his pregnant mate who looked to be plummeting to his death. But Sam had spread his wings with plenty of time to stop his fall. He’d placed a hand over his belly, then flew right back up. It looked like he was performing an aerial ballet, with the number of loops and spins he did. They were both the happiest Bucky had ever seen them. It was the first time RJ had ever flown out in the open air.

Steve watched them alongside Bucky as their cigarettes burned themselves away. “Why are you up here watching instead of down there participating?”

“Don’t think I was invited.”

“They’re your family, Bucky.”

Bucky flicked his cigarette over the edge of the rooftop. “Are they really?” Steve had been his only family for longer than Bucky could remember. From the time they were snot-nosed kids playing stick-ball in the middle of Brooklyn streets, to soldiers in battle, always watching each other’s six. There was a lot more than a Hydra manipulated mating bond tying him to Steve. And so much more than sex without a label. “I thought it was bad enough competing with a dead man and the ghost of ‘almost.’ But this here is a whole different league.”

“Why so?” Steve asked.

“Look at them Steve. They were practically crying in each other’s arm within seconds of meeting. They got a shared history I can’t even imagine.”

“Within seconds of seeing you again, Sam sent you after his son. He didn’t ask to be let free to get him himself, he trusted you to do it. Within a couple of months of meeting you, Clint asked you to spend his Heat with him. The only person he’s trusted to do that before was Natasha, and they knew each other for almost two years before he asked her. You have a shared history with Sam that no one could imagine and I’ve watched you begin building your future with Clint. They are your family, Buck. All of them.”

Bucky looked over to the green field where Sam was now seated at Clint’s side while they watched RJ in the air. There were no words for how much he wanted that. Wanted Sam and Clint and RJ and the unborn baby and the future they could all have together. There was no words to encompass how he _really liked_ Sam and _more than liked_ Clint and _just loved_ the two of them together.

“Families are built on love and trust,” Bucky said. “There’s an alarming lack of both in our relationship.”

Steve stubbed out his cigarette against the roof ledge and got to his feet. He looked once more towards the three people on the patch of green, then turned to Bucky. “I think there’s more there than you can see at this time.”

** … **

“So, Sam?” Bucky asked, taking a seat in his desk chair instead of joining Clint over on the bed.

Clint sighed and dragged the palms of his hands down his face. “When I first joined SHIELD, I was sent on a handful of missions with a special squad of the air force. The EXO-7 team. With their wing packs, they were able to fly me into areas otherwise unavailable. They rescued men and I took down certain high ranking members of the opposition. I couldn’t be trained to use the wings myself, because I wasn’t actually enlisted.

“I got grouped with Sam and Riley my first time out. Sam carried me and Riley watched our backs. I was expecting these serious no nonsense soldiers, because this was an elite squad right? First thing Riley did over the comm. was tell a damn dick joke and Sam replied with an equally lewd comment. Set the course for the rest of the assignment. The mission went off without a hitch. Back at camp, we toasted over some bourbon Sam’s sister sent and ended up dancing half naked around the fire.

“When SHIELD sent me back for another mission, I was happy to go. I flew nine missions with them during their two tours. Each time, I spent anywhere between a day to three months with their squad. In that time period, I fell in love with them. I knew they were together, but I could only hope they’d want a triad with me. By our fourth mission together, I had no doubt they did. I wasn’t even supposed to tell them my name, for the longest time, they knew me only as The Specialist or Hawk, and I called them my Flyboys or Falcon and Redwing. The whole squad knew that the three of us would one day be married long before their CO caught us naked in the desert.

“Then SHIELD pulled me away. My skills were needed elsewhere. I kept in touch with Sam and Riley through letters and the rare phone call. Mostly it was only the hope in my heart the kept me believing they still loved me. Then they stopped calling. Stopped replying to my letters. Just radio silence. And I thought that was it. I thought the time and space had killed the flame between us. And it hurt, but I made myself keep going.

“And then Cookie came home. He was their CO and the first thing he did after his tour was track me down. He told me they found Riley’s body but didn’t spend even three days searching for Sam. This was over a year later and there was nothing I could do. I realized I’d been lying to myself for a long time. I’d just hoped they’d moved on from me, because that was better than the alternative.”

“Clint,” Bucky said softly. He hesitated for only a second, before abandoning the desk to join Clint on the bed. He pulled the smaller man into his arms and held onto him as Clint broke down.

“I mourned him, Buck. I mourned both of them. I poured bourbon on their graves and locked away the memories. Made myself forget that time in my life when I’d thought that a man like me could have love and a family and happiness. I was so fucking full of myself. I thought losing them was some cosmic penance for the things I’d done. I treated their memory like Sam and Riley were nothing more than minor characters in my superhero origin story. I walked away. I left him there. Sam was alive and alone, he needed me and I left him there.”

Bucky wanted to comfort him. Wanted to tell him that Clint hadn’t known what was happening to Sam and that none of it was his fault, but he couldn’t figure out how to word it. Didn’t know how to shape the words to make them sound like more than half-hearted placations. Before he could even try, Clint interrupted him.

“Why didn’t you tell me they were here?” The archer asked.

“What?” It was a place-filler, a staller, a way to buy time while Bucky tried to gather his thoughts. Because, and he was ashamed to admit it, he’d hoped Clint would be too overwhelmed by his emotions to ask that question.

“Even not knowing what Sam meant to me, you should have told me you had a mate and child here. How long were you planning on hiding that from me?”

“I was going to tell you,” Bucky mumbled, staring at his hands because the anger and accusation in Clint’s eyes was too much for him to meet. “I just didn’t know how and…” And he hadn’t wanted to lose what they had.

** … **

He gave them space. Bucky cut back on the number of times he visited Sam and let Clint go in his stead. To keep himself from watching these visits on his tablet, he spent time sparring with Steve and Natasha, or aiding in the training of new recruits. At night, he went to bed early, opting for sleep over spending hours wondering if Clint would be joining him or not. Clint never joined him.

“You still moping about?” Natasha asked, gracefully folding herself into a cross-legged seated position on the floor next to Bucky. He was at the shooting range, but was cleaning his guns instead of shooting at targets.

“I’m not moping,” Bucky mumbled.

“Sure you’re not.” Natasha grabbed one of the guns laid out next to Bucky, a M82 sniper rifle, and deftly began dismantling it. Bucky didn’t deign that statement worth a response, so they sat in silence for a few minutes.

“Did you know?” Bucky asked once his need to know outweighed his common sense.

For a second, he thought Natasha wouldn’t reply. She kept her attention on the gun in her lap and looked as if she hadn’t even heard Bucky speak. “When he’s drunk or otherwise at leave of his better senses, he rambles about how he left his heart with a couple of ‘flyboys in the desert’,” she finally answered. “So I knew he was once part of a triad, and I’d guessed that he’d lost both of them. He never really liked talking about it, so I never pushed him. So, yes, I did know you were not his first love, but it didn’t matter because he wasn’t yours either. But, no, I did not know it was Sam. But I also don’t see how it matters.”

“It matters because…”

“I matters because you never could figure out why Clint wanted you. You still think of yourself as a broken mimicry of a man, and it just doesn’t compute that anyone other than Steve could possibly care about you. So you think Clint only wants you for your body and the comfort of not sleeping alone. But he can’t possibly want a relationship with you, because who would, right? And now that Sam’s in the picture, you’re thinking Clint is going to realize you’re not good enough, and Sam’s going to remember what it means to be happy, and neither of them is going to want you. You’re going to martyr your heart, because you’re an idiot.”

Each word hit with such pinpoint accuracy, Bucky found himself flinching away from some of the words, as if the truth in them were bullets to be dodged. “My only advice for you is this,” Natasha continued, “go talk to them! Talk to Sam. Talk to Clint. All three of you talk together.” She set the reassembled rifle down on the floor, then stood with as much grace as she’d sat with. “Communication, Barnes. It’s not that hard.” Then she walked away.

** … **

“I was starting to think you were avoiding me,” Sam commented a week later when Bucky finally ran out of excuses to stay away from him.

“I thought I’d give you some time with Clint,” Bucky said, not meeting Sam’s eyes.

“Did I ask for time with Clint?” Sam asked. He was knitting, of all things. Bucky knew it was Clint who’d acquired the needles and yarn for him, because there was no way Dr. Wolff would let Sam have something he enjoyed. Bucky hadn’t even known Sam knew how to knit, but Clint undoubtedly had remembered from their time together before all of this.

Bucky frowned and stared down at his hands, wringing themselves in his lap. “No, but you needed it. I know how reconnecting with lost loved ones go.”

He could feel Sam’s eyes on him, but Bucky kept his own gaze firmly on his hands. “Clint says the two of you are in a relationship,” Sam said apropos of nothing.

Bucky looked up at him startled. “Um, yeah,” he admitted, cheeks flushing slightly. “We’re…something?”

“He really likes you,” Sam pressed.

“I really like him.” Bucky’s blush deepened.

“But you’re willing to let him go if you think he wants to rekindle something with me. You’re willing to let both of us go.” Neither sentence was a question and Bucky’s only answer was to look back down at his hands, his hair swinging forward and concealing his face. “Natasha was right, you are an idiot,” Sam said. Bucky glanced up from beneath his eyelashes in time to see Sam smile. “But I like you.”

 


	7. I've Conquered Hills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few small references to "Your Hands Protect the Flames" in the first part of this chapter, not enough to make you need to have to read that fic if you haven't. Very, very, very small reference to some past Stucky in the late part of the chapter, not enough to warrant the need to tag the ship. 
> 
> Thank you all ever so much for your patience.
> 
> Title from "At This Point in My Life" by Tracy Chapman.
> 
> Please review.

**7\. I’ve Conquered Hills (But I Still Have Mountains to Climb)**

Bucky was back on the roof. This time without Steve and cigarettes. It was late and he couldn’t sleep. Nights without Clint in his bed were always harder. It wasn’t that Bucky couldn’t sleep alone, just that he’d gotten used to the company. It was… lonely was probably the most accurate word for it. The feeling of rolling over and finding only cold sheets where he’d expected a warm body. And how deafening the silence was without the sound of someone else’s breathing. It was lonely. Bucky was lonely.

Even up here on the rooftop, somewhere he’d always found comfort, he was lonely. Because the rooftop was where he and Clint spent sleepless nights: eating junk, shooting a slingshot into the darkness, and talking about nothing or everything.

It was during those nights that Bucky had fallen in love with Clint. The nights of just the two of them under a ceiling of stars, the salty-sweet taste of peanuts and jelly beans on their tongues, passing the slingshot back and forward. Clint was a walking disaster, but he had impeccable aim and a wicked sense of humor and even on the nights he wasn’t up for talking, he was great company.

And it wasn’t just the nights. There were early mornings in the training room where Clint performed amazing feats of acrobatics (leftover skills from his time as a carnie) while sparring with Bucky. There were lunch breaks in coffee shops with Clint teaching Bucky American Sign Language. There were afternoons spent wrapped around each other on a couch, stuffing their face with too much sugar while marathoning every sci-fi show and movie Bucky had missed in the last seventy years. And there were evenings in the shooting range. Clint had a stance that gave professional archers nightmares, absolutely atrocious, but there was no faulting his skills. They had a friendly competition between them, each trying to prove that they were the better marksman.

Bucky have loved Clint in every moment they’d spent together. Even the one where Clint had walked out with no sign he’d ever return to Bucky’s side.

A noise drew Bucky from his thought and he looked up to find Clint standing in front of him. He was holding a canister of peanuts and the noise Bucky had heard was him shaking it. Clint offered the canister to Bucky and then dropped himself down next to Bucky with his usual lack of grace.

“So,” he began, taking the peanuts back from Bucky and peeling off the lid, Bucky wasn’t surprised to see the multi-colored jelly beans mixed in, “Natasha says were both idiots. And Sam agrees with her.” Clint picked through the canister until he found a black jelly bean. He fitted the jelly bean into the cup of the slingshot he pulled from his pocket. “The two of them and my therapist all agree that the two of us need to talk. I’m pretty sure Dr. Finley agrees with the idiot observation as well, but she’s too professional to actually say that.” The slingshot was passed to Bucky after Clint had fired his round. “So, let’s talk about our feelings.”

And since Bucky had just spent the last however long thinking about his feelings for Clint, it took no thought at all for him to say, “I love you.”

Clint had been raising a handful of snacks to his mouth, but they all fell from his hand at Bucky’s words. “Say that again.”

Bucky turned so that he could look Clint in the eyes and Clint could read his lips if need be, “I love you. I’ve loved you for a while. And I want to Bond with you. And I want kids and a house in the suburbs and all of that. I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I never said it before, because I was scared I’d lose you if you didn’t want all of that, too or if you wanted it with someone other than me.”

Clint smiled. “We are idiots,” he stated. “That is to say, I love you and want to Bond with you too. And we’re idiots for wasting so much time pretending we hadn’t known that all along. When I asked you to spend my heat with me that first time, it was the closest I could bring myself to actually making a love confession, and when you didn’t catch the hidden meaning, I figured it was because you didn’t want me. And when I learned how long you’d gone without telling me about Sam and RJ, I thought it was because you were being careful with my feelings because you didn’t know how to break up with me.”

“I didn’t tell you about Sam and RJ because I didn’t want to lose you. I was scared that knowing I actually did already have a mate would make you realize I’m not what you want or that you would decide that a pre-made family is not for you and would want to push them out of our lives. And I don’t want them out of my life.”

Clint didn’t say anything. He took the slingshot from Bucky’s hand and picked up one of the fallen peanuts from his lap. He loaded the slingshot and fired it over the edge of the rooftop. “I talked to Sam,” he finally said. “He told me… He said they changed him. Said they put something inside him and the wings came out in turn. Said he wasn’t sure if he was even human anymore. He told me that there’s not a single cell of him that’s still the same Sam I loved.”

Clint fired another peanut. “I told him that time changes us all, with or without outside interference and that I’m hardly the same Clint he’d known in Afghanistan. And I told him that the Clint I am now loves Bucky Barnes and that Bucky Barnes cares a lot about the Sam he is now and that even if he and I didn’t have a history, that would be enough for me.”

** … **

They agreed they would talk to Sam together, that they would figure out how he and RJ and the unborn baby would fit in their lives before they bonded and moved forward. But before they could speak with Sam, Bucky got called away for a mission with Steve.

Bucky had only been on a few small assignments since they’d found Sam, nothing that lasted more than a couple of days. He was long overdue for a bigger mission, but he would have preferred to stay close to Sam and RJ and Clint. So, it was just his luck that his next assignment took him to the middle of Bum Fuck Egypt and kept him there for three and a half weeks. But it was well worth it, because other than a few bumps in the road, the mission had been a success. Their first successful Hydra-related mission in far too long.

They returned to base in the middle of the night, a little worse-for-wear, but more tired than anything. The first thing he did was head for the room where Sam and RJ were. They were both sleeping when Bucky opened the door, RJ curled up close to his dad almost hidden from sight beneath the blanket of Sam’s wing. He was shocked to find that their nest was no more. They were sharing one of the beds and they were sleeping peacefully, without the usual nightmares that plagued them both.

Bucky stood there watching them for unmeasured minutes, until Steve finally found him. “We have a debriefing,” he whispered, watching Bucky watching the sleeping family.

“I could love them,” Bucky said.

Steve smiled. “I think you already do. Come on. Sooner we debrief, the sooner we can sleep.” When they finished the debriefing, Bucky returned to the room he’d started thinking of as actually his and not just a borrowed space. Clint was curled up in Bucky’s bed, cuddling a pillow. Bucky watched him with a fond smile far longer than he needed to, before stripping down and joining him in bed.

** … **

“Ada!” RJ yelled the moment Bucky entered the room. He abandoned his pile of toys and ran across the room to Bucky, his wings spread out behind him and actually lifted him off the ground for a brief second. He threw himself into Bucky’s arms, “Missed you.”

Bucky’s heart lodged itself in his throat, at RJ’s words. He’d called him ‘ada’. A word reserved for a child’s alpha father. Specifically, a word a child would use to refer to their well-loved alpha father. It wasn’t a word Bucky had expected to hear RJ use for him, because it wasn’t a word applied to a stranger or absentee father. “Missed you, too,” Bucky said, hugging the boy close to him. He really had missed him more than he would ever admit.

RJ smiled up at him. His hair had been a mess of free hanging braids when Bucky had left, but they were gone now. A great deal of his hair was gone now, the usual afro of springy hair had been chopped down to less than an inch in length. “What happened to your hair?” Bucky asked, burying his face against what was left of his son’s hair and kissing his head.

“Daddy cut it because Clint gave me gum.” RJ wiggled free of Bucky’s arms then grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the bed where Sam and Clint were watching them. Bucky hesitated for a second, but at Sam’s slight nod, he took a seat next to the man.

“I cut it because Clint let him take a nap without spitting his gum out and there was no saving his hair after the gum got stuck in it.”

“Sure, blame it on me,” Clint mumbled. He was seated on Sam’s other side, the three of them facing outwards with their backs against the wall. “Hey, lover boy,” he greeted Bucky with an exaggerated wink.

Bucky let out a noise of amusement. “Hey,” he greeted Sam, ignoring the pouting archer. “No more nest?”

“Getting too big for that,” Sam stated, rubbing a hand over his large belly. What had been the size of a deflated basketball only weeks ago was now more akin to a fully grown watermelon. A watermelon that would win at least third place at the country fair. “Almost couldn’t get up last time.”

“ _Bucky_ ,” Clint whined. Bucky let out another amused noise, leaned across Sam to brush his lips against Clint’s upturned ones. Bucky lingered a second longer than what could be called a ‘peck’ and Clint was smirking like the cat who got the cream by time Bucky pulled away.

“Do I get one of those?” Sam asked.

Bucky almost toppled over with how fast he turned to look at Sam. There was teasing in the winged man’s eyes, but also an undeniable seriousness. “All you had to do was ask,” Bucky stated with more confidence than he was feeling. Sam grinned and tilted his head towards Bucky in invitation. Bucky’s heart was pounding as he leaned forward and brushed their lips together.

To be honest, he was half expecting the earth to stop spinning or a chorus of angels to descend upon them, because this was his mate he was kissing. This was the man who, while he had been nothing more than a walking weapon, Bucky had decided to protect and care for. He had to be special, right? The kiss lasted barely longer that a heartbeat, Sam’s lips were slightly chapped, and even though the earth spun on, Bucky decided he wouldn’t mind kissing him all day.

“Do _I_ get one of those?” Clint asked, poking Sam in the arm.

Sam laughed, and Bucky decided that sound was better than any heavenly chorus, then turned and gave Clint a small peck on the lips. And Bucky’s heart may have leapt clean out of his chest at the sight. Of the three of them, Bucky probably had the dopiest smile on his face.

At that moment, RJ wandered over and stole Sam’s tablet from the bed between them. Bucky blushed bright red and looked away from Sam and Clint, staring at the wall until he got his sudden overflow of emotions back under control.

“So, what did you get up to while I was away?” Bucky asked, turning back to Sam.

Sam shrugged. He was still mostly confined to one room, though he did get escorted walks around the base every day. Bucky and Clint both had argued against this continued confinement, stating that it was treatment more suited for a prisoner, and even inmates got time outside occasionally. But Dr. Sylvia Wolff insisted that she knew what she was doing and that Sam and RJ were getting the best care, specially tailored to their needs. “Jemma’s team stopped in and she kept us company for a while. I saw Phil and he nearly had a heart attack when he recognized me. He went outside with us so RJ could fly for a while.”

“No flying for you?” Bucky asked.

Sam snorted and rolled his eyes. “Not really in proper form for it. Honestly, I didn’t need Jemma telling me flying this late in pregnancy isn’t a good idea.”

“Did you have the ultrasound?”

Sam shook his head. “Thought that was something I should have both of you there for.” Bucky did not claim the flutter of his heart was anything other than what it was. Sam made a face of discomfort and started rubbing his stomach. “Kid just kicked a field goal with my kidney.”

“Is he very active?” Bucky asked, clenching his hands at his side to keep from reaching out and trying to touch.

“I think she rearranged all my organs. Feel,” Sam said. He grabbed Bucky’s hand and placed it on one side of his stomach. The fluttering of movement under his hand almost made Bucky’s heart jump out of his chest.

Clint pressed his own hand down next to Bucky’s and gasped. “That’s amazing.”

Sam huffed. “Maybe from where you’re sitting. I don’t think my bladder will ever forgive this abuse. You know I was never meant to be the pregnant one.”

Clint nodded, then explained for Bucky’s sake, “We were a traditional ABO Triad. Sam was our alpha, Riley the beta, and I was the omega. I was going to carry all our children.”

“I offered to carry one,” Sam added. “Riley wished he was an omega. He was more than willing to carry any children we might have if he could. He said the bond between carrier and child was something truly extraordinary.” Sam sighed. “I wouldn’t give up RJ for anything in the world, but I would rather have my uterus ripped out by wolves than ever be pregnant again.”

“I think wolves may be a bit extreme,” Bucky said, taking his hand away from Sam’s stomach. “I’m sure if you really wanted it, the doctor could give you a hysterectomy once they take this one out. You could easily live as an alpha after this.”

“Would you want an alpha mate?”

While ABO Triads were remained the most accepted relationships, couples and infertile relationships between people with the same dynamic were a lot more common and accepted in the twenty-first century than they’d been when Bucky was growing up.

Back then, Bucky had only ever dated beta dames and only ever one at a time. And while it wasn’t as bad as if it would have been had he been dating another alpha or a beta male, it was frowned upon by respectable members of society. There was nothing considered more indecent than being in a relationship that couldn’t produce offspring.

People accepted Bucky’s desire to couple up with betas gals by assuming there would eventually be an omega added to the relationship. But Bucky knew he would never have dated an omega back then.

Steve had been born an omega and his heats were so hard on his already weak body, it had terrified Bucky. It had always been the question of, “is this it? Is this the time the heat will kill him?” Bucky had started associating heats with that terror and ended up avoiding omegas. (Clint was the first omega he’d ever been with.)

And then, Project Rebirth had happened and the same thing that turned little Steve Rogers into big strong Captain America had turned that sickly omega into a strapping alpha. The serum had affected him on such an atomic level, it was really like he’d literally been reborn.

Bucky had loved sickly omega Steve from day one despite his fear of and for him, and when he saw that he was the same person beneath the cosmetic differences, he’d loved big alpha Steve just as much. Of course, AA couples back then was considered a despicable perversion and Bucky had had to hide his feelings. He probably would always love Steve, if not in the same way. “I’ve loved an alpha before,” Bucky told them.

“Steve?”

“Steve.” He admitted. “Regardless, a mate’s job is not to decide who or what their mate can be, but to support them in becoming who they want to be.”

“Daddy,” RJ interrupted before Sam could respond. “Can we watch this one?” He held up Sam’s tablet and pointed to a small picture of an animated movie cover.

“ _Beauty and the Beast_?” Sam asked. “You sure you wanna watch that one again? You’ve seen it three times and we haven’t watched _Lady and the Tramp_ yet.”

“I wanna watch Beast. Ada and Clint can watch with us.” RJ didn’t wait for an answer, he crawled onto the bed and pushed his way between Sam and Clint, slapping Bucky with a wayward wing as he climbed over him. Bucky was more amused than anything by it.

Sam let out a huff, but adjusted himself on the bed so the four of them could sit comfortable and see the small screen of the tablet. It was a tight fit on the small bed, but they somehow made it work. “Hey, little bird,” Sam said before RJ could start the movie, “if we’re gonna do four on a bed, those wings gotta go.”

RJ groaned. “Do I hafta?”

“Yes you have to.”

RJ looked at Clint with hopeful eyes, but Clint held up his hands and shook his head. “Don’t look at me, I have no authority in this room.”

“Do I really hafta?” RJ asked, turning those same hopeful eyes onto Bucky.

Bucky laughed. “If your daddy says you have to, you have to. I don’t make the rules.”

RJ pouted, but obediently concentrated on concealing his wings. It was the first time Bucky had ever seen it done up close. Living in a world of aliens and mutants, Bucky didn’t know what exactly he’d expected to see when RJ retracted his wings.

RJ had two slits cut into the back of his shirt where his wings came through. He pulled his wings in, took a couple of deep breaths, then his wings just seemed to shrink at a rapid pace. And then, in the space of a blink, they were just gone.

“May I…” Bucky trailed off, one hand raised and reaching towards the boy over Sam.

RJ smiled at him and lifted his shirt, showing his bare back to Bucky. The skin was smooth and showed no sign of his wings. “Where’d they go?” Bucky asked, touching his son’s back gently.

“Hammer Space?” Clint offered. Bucky shot him a confused look. Clint let out an amused snort. “It’s just a way of saying things appear and disappear against the rules of science.”

“Does it hurt?”

Sam answered, “I can’t feel it, but RJ says it causes him some discomfort.”

“It scratchy,” RJ said.

“Itchy,” Bucky and Sam corrected in unison.

“Itchy,” RJ repeated. “Can we watch Beast now?”

Sam let out another amused snort, then retracted his own wings. “C’mon then, little bird. You too, big bird,” he added, grabbing Clint’s arm and pulling him closer. The four of them had to snuggle close in order to share the small screen of Sam’s tablet. Bucky didn’t mind at all.

** … **

RJ had fallen asleep by time Belle and the Beast started singing about there being “Something There” and, at Sam’s request, Bucky carried him across the room and laid him down on the other bed. Bucky, Clint, and Sam curled up together to finish the film. As they watched the two characters dance to “Tale as Old as Time” a thought entered Bucky’s head that wouldn’t go away.

“Dancing,” he mumbled.

“What was that?” Clint asked, looking up from the small screen and frowning towards Bucky.

“I remember dancing,” he said. “We used to dance, didn’t we, Sam?”

The expression that flitted across Sam’s face was one Bucky couldn’t decipher and then he just looked sad. He paused the movie before answering.

“Whenever they tried to separate us, you’d put of a fight,” Sam said. “So they ended up leaving us, more or less, alone most of the time. They delivered us food every day and sometimes they’d come in and say something that pretty much shut you down, like powering off a phone or something, so they could take me away for testing. But they always returned me to the room before waking you up. Other than that, it was just me and you in this small white room. And the only thing we had by way of entertainment was this radio.

“It was a shitty old radio. Didn’t pick up many stations and the ones it did were full of static. But it was better than nothing. Sometimes there would be days when you and I had nothing to say to each other and that radio was the only thing keeping us from going mad in the silence. One day, after about a month or so together, you were messing around with the radio and you managed to tune it to this station that played old-timey music, all horns and scat and stuff. And I swear to god, you just lit up. I’d never seen you smile like that. I was stunned.

“And then, the next thing I knew, you’d pulled me into your arms and started swinging me around, tossing me over your shoulder and sliding me between your legs. I knew the basics of how to Lindy Hop because some of the old church ladies back where I grew up had taught a bunch of us kids. But I could barely keep up with you. But you were smiling and laughing the whole time and talking me through what to do in an unmistakable Brooklyn accent. And all I could think was, I never wanted you to stop smiling like that. So, we danced.

“You called me your fella and said a pretty bird like me didn’t belong in a cage. And the next day, you tried to break us out. Of course, we didn’t get very far. All they had to do was say those words that shut you down like powering off a phone. They locked me back in that room and took you away somewhere. I didn’t see you for three days after. And when they finally brought you back, you had no idea who I was. And after that, every time the sound of horns made you want to Jitterbug, they would take you away and erase me from your memory.”

There were tears in Sam’s eyes when he said, “So, yeah, Buck, we used to dance. Right up until I got too heavy with RJ for you to be swinging me around like that. And I both loved and hated it. Because it was the only time I ever saw you so carefree and the Brooklyn in your voice reminded me of home. But it also meant that soon you would be forgetting me again and I wasn’t sure if it was worth it.

“And then, a few months after RJ was born, I’d finally learned all the steps to your favorite Lindy Hop and we both laughed while we jumped around the room, and we kissed while you held me over your head. And when they took you away that night, they never brought you back.”


	8. We'll Watch the Sky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, I was half way through writing it when I realized that what I had written was based around scenes that I had removed from earlier chapters and it would make no sense to anyone because I'm an idiot and forgot to add those scenes back like I was supposed to, and I had to scrap what I'd written and start over. And then my home internet got disconnected and my life turned into a shitstorm and, yeah... sorry for the delay. Expect another delay before the next chapter.

**8\. We’ll Watch the Sky (As it Fills With Light)**

RJ had been coaxed into retracting his wings before they’d left the room, though the price for getting him to do so had been Bucky agreeing to carry him to and from their destination. So, RJ sat in the curve of Bucky’s metal arm, little legs dangling down as he rested his head on Bucky’s shoulder, while he sucked on the two fingers Bucky had been unable to coax out of his mouth.

Clint stood on Bucky’s right, dressed for a mission, though lacking his weapons. Hill had given him an assignment earlier that morning and he’d be leaving for it as soon as they were done here. It was meant to be a short assignment, no more than a day or two, but there was really no predicting how these things would turn out anymore. It was best that they did this now while they were all present instead of putting it off in hopes of having more time later.

So Bucky, with RJ on his hip and Clint beside him, stood next to the examination table where Sam was reclining, barely concealing his nervousness as Jemma opened a thick file folder and propped it against Sam’s legs.

“Given the…er… _alien_ nature of the fetus, I thought it best not to judge by… human developmental milestones,” Jemma said, “so I reviewed the files we were able to recover from HYDRA about your previous pregnancies and cross-referenced them with other fetal development research. Based on this, I have a reasonable estimation of where your child should be developmentally. But I must impress upon you again, I am not a qualified obstetrician and you really should look into another doctor.”

“I’ve already spoken with Helen Cho,” Clint informed her. “She’s busy in Seoul right now, but she has agreed to come here as soon as she’s available.”

Sam, Bucky, and Clint had talked about bringing in Helen Cho the last time Jemma had thought to remind them that she wasn’t a medical doctor. Helen wasn’t an obstetrician, but she did had a medical degree and some experience with atypical medical practices, and most importantly, Clint trusted her. Sam had agreed to let Jemma examine him because Bucky trusted her, so it was only fair that Clint’s word was all it took for them to trust Helen.

“Alright then,” Jemma said with a relieved smile. “Let’s take a look at your little one, shall we.”  She fiddled with a few things on the ultrasound machine, then poured a gel on Sam’s stomach and rubbed the wand through it.

Bucky’s eyes fixed on the blurry black and white image that appeared on the small screen. It took a moment to make out just what he was seeing, but soon there was no mistaking the four tiny limbs and the slightly too large head. That was a baby in there. His baby. Inside his mate. Bucky’s inner alpha was preening. He smiled.

There was a sharp intake of breath from his right and suddenly Clint’s hand was wrapped around his and squeezing his fingers tightly. Bucky turned to the archer and found Clint’s eyes transfixed by the image on the ultrasound screen. There was no mistaking the look of yearning on his face and it made Bucky’s heart jump in his chest.

He and Clint hadn’t bonded yet, they were waiting for Clint’s next heat to do so, but everything within Bucky that was _alpha_ already considered Clint to be _his_ omega and his omega was showing an unmistakable desire for children and Bucky had to fight down the urges that awoke within him.

“That’s my sister.” RJ didn’t say it as a question, but whether a statement of fact, like there was no doubt in his mind that the little baby on the screen was his sister, despite the fact that they didn’t actually know the baby’s gender yet. Bucky, Sam, and Clint had been alternating their pronoun use when referring to the baby, but RJ had decided weeks ago that the baby was a girl.

Jemma let out a noncommittal noise and moved the wand around a bit, she leaned closer to the screen as if to see better, then flipped a few pages in the file folder and stared at it intently, turned back to the screen, and then finally said, “Yes, I believe that is in fact your sister.” Jemma hit a button and suddenly the sound of a rapid heartbeat filled the room. RJ smiled brightly, then stuck his two fingers back into his mouth and leaned against Bucky’s shoulder, eyes still fixed on the screen.

Bucky turned to Sam wanting to share this moment with him. He expected to find Sam staring in awe at the screen like the rest of them, but instead discovered the man had his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his hands clenched into fists at his side.

“Sam?”

“Is she…healthy?” Sam’s voice was so low, it would have been inaudible had the room not gone silent other than the loud heartbeat coming from the machine.

Jemma didn’t answer right away, she looked for one long silent moment at Sam, who still hadn’t opened his eyes, then turned back to the screen and slid the wand over Sam’s belly a few more times. “From what I can tell, she’s great. Right size, all her limbs, heartbeat a little fast but from the notes, that’s to be expected.”

“She’s perfect,” Bucky says, dropping a hand to Sam’s shoulder and squeezing it reassuringly. It occurs to him that the last little girl Sam had given birth to had only lived a month and the pregnancies before her had been miscarriages and stillbirths with physical deformities. In an ideal world, Sam would have been saved from the pain of having to fear for his children before they even left his womb. In in ideal world, Sam wouldn’t be here, he would be with Clint and Riley in a house in the city, already on their third kid, planning a trip to the farm.

For only a moment, Bucky is glad that they didn’t live in an ideal world, because if they did, he wouldn’t have Clint and Sam and RJ and the thought of not having them was enough to make his heart break. He pushed the thought away and held RJ a little tighter. “She’s absolutely perfect,” he said again.

Sam nodded and slowly relaxed his clenched fists. He opened his eyes and looked first at Bucky and RJ standing over him, then turned and met Clint’s soft gaze for a moment. He reached a hand towards Clint and the archer took it without a word, only then did Sam turn and look at the little screen on the ultrasound machine. And a second later, he started to cry.

…

“What happened to your arm?” RJ asked. He was helping Bucky lay down the tracks for the model train set Steve had bought for him. Steve now visited them almost as often as Bucky did. Half of the toys RJ had were bought by Steve (Natasha had provided a good portion of them as well). Clint’s only contribution so far had been a small archery bow with fiberglass arrows. RJ was in love with it.

At this moment, Clint was away on his mission and Sam was napping in his nest following their emotionally exhausting ultrasound scan. The further along in his pregnancy he got, the more Sam napped throughout the day. He’d sighed in relief the moment they’d returned to his room. Had told RJ to “go bother your ada and let me rest.” Then curled up in a ball and promptly fell asleep.

Bucky had played with RJ before. Hadn’t had much choice but to do so when the toddler had looked at him with those big eyes and asked him to color a picture or play cars with him. But they’d always been under Sam’s watchful eye. There was an unspoken amount of trust involved in not only letting Bucky be in the room while Sam was vulnerable in sleep, but also letting him be what counted as alone with RJ.

Bucky was always aware of his metal arm the way people were constantly aware of the loaded gun on their hip. The new prosthetic Stark had made for him was light and comfortable enough that it felt natural, but it was no less dangerous than the one he’d had before. He told himself often that guns are only as dangerous as person in possession of it, and so was his arm. But that meant nothing when he couldn’t always reconcile in himself the good person he was meant to be, and the assassin he’d been for many years.

Bucky forced a smile. “I hated milk when I was a kid,” he answered RJ. “I didn’t care if it was meant to give you strong bones and teeth, I wouldn’t drink it. Because I didn’t drink my milk, my bones were weak and one day I woke up and my arm was gone. So I had to get this one. Now I drink all my milk, because I need strong bones.”

RJ acknowledged Bucky’s words with a nod. “I have strong bones,” he said. “It was really hard to break them.”

Bucky flinched. RJ had said the words so casually, like the intentional breaking of bones was something people did all the time. Bucky had read the files. He knew what had been done to his son supposedly to test the strength of his hollow bones and the limits of his healing. It filled him with an amount of rage that scared him. Bucky wasn’t an angry person by nature, but knowing how his son had been hurt infuriated him. He wanted to find every one of those scientists and break their bones, make them feel RJ’s pain. Rip them limb from limb and leave them to die. He was angrier about what had be done to RJ and Sam than what had been done to him.

“I like your arm," RJ added. “It’s different, like my wings. My daddy says our differences don’t make us monsters, they make us rare and rare things are loved more than anything. He said the ones who called us monsters are the real monsters. We didn’t do anything but be the way they made us. Daddy says there are no monsters here, but he was wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Bucky asked, sitting down the two train cars he was trying to connect together. “There are no monsters here.”

“Yes there is. I saw one.”

“When?”

“The day Clint came. She was in the hall. I didn’t know it was her because she wasn’t talking funny.”

“Talking funny?”

RJ nodded. “The monster has an accent, like Jemma but different. When I saw her in the hall, she didn’t have an accent.”

“What does the monster look like?” Bucky asked.

“She’s got hair like yours, but she’s small like Jemma. She wear glasses and she smell funny.”

“And she’s one of the monsters from where you were before?”

RJ nodded, though most of his attention was now on this train set. “She’s the one that always watched and told them what to do.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Mm hmm. They called her Farkas.”

“Have you told your daddy you saw the monster?”

“Daddy don’t like talking about the monsters. It makes him sad. I didn’t want to make him sad.”

“That’s good. We don’t want to make daddy sad, so let’s keep this between us. Our little secret, okay?”

RJ looked up at him for a long moment, and Bucky could feel a muted muddle of emotions coming from him. “Okay,” he finally said.

When Bucky left RJ with Sam, hours later, he headed straight for the Widow. “Natalia,” he said, “I need a favor.”


	9. I Wake Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any update is better than no update, right?

**9\. I Wake Up (More Awake than I’ve Ever Been Before)**

Sveta Volkov had been born the only child of a beta couple in a small village in Russia. Growing up, she’d often heard people whispering behind their hands about how her parents, Akilina and Nicoli, were so plain and boring they couldn’t attract an alpha or omega, or even another beta to make their relationship a proper triad. Many of these whispers went on to speculate that Sveta would be just as plain and boring, because more often than not, beta parents had beta children and there is nothing remarkable about betas at all.

With an eidetic memory, an IQ of 180, and an almost unnatural love for the sciences, Sveta proved at a young age that she was quite remarkable and anything but “plain and boring”.

When Sveta was seven years old, her parents divorced. It quickly became common knowledge in their small community that Sveta’s father had been having an affair with an alpha/omega couple, and had left her mother to bond as a triad with them. The people whispering behind their hands said Nicoli really could not be held a fault, it was only natural that he would desire a proper relationship, any sensible beta would choose and alpha and omega over a fellow beta, and really Akilina should not have been so surprised.

Nicoli had been the one to have an affair and abandon his family, but it was Akilina who bore the shame. It was Akilina who was sneered at and shunned by the people who had once been her friends, because how dare she act so heartbroken when her relationship with Nicoli had been so unconventional in the first place.

After months of this mistreatment, Akilina packed up Sveta and a few of their possessions and left their small Russian village to settle down with a cousin in Hungary. The only thing young Sveta managed to take away from her father’s betrayal and her mother’s heartbreak was that, had Akilina been anything other than a beta, things would have gone differently.

Sveta’s generalized love for all branches of science took a more focus direction as the young genius began devoting her time to learning all she could about human biology, gender, and dynamics. For decades, scientist had been researching how to turn an alpha into an omega or vice-versa or a beta into either, but had only ever succeeded at turning alphas and omegas into betas, and making betas gravely ill.

At the behest of the cousin who was sheltering them, Sveta (at only eleven years of age) submitted a scientific paper on gender, dynamics, and socialization to a British university under the name Svetlana Farkas. In this paper Sveta became the first person in recorded history to theorize that, unlike physical gender, a person’s A/B/O dynamic is not decided in the womb.

Sveta speculated that prior to puberty, a child was essentially a blank slate in regards to dynamics and that social and environmental factors played a large role in determining how they would later present: a child growing up around mostly alphas would present as an omega, a child exposed primarily to omegas would become an alpha, betas beget more betas, and only children raised in an environment with a balanced number of alphas, betas, and omegas were truly wildcards and that is where the chance of dual dynamics came in.

This was all pure conjecture for the most part, but the paper was published in a small scientific journal and soon there were many scientists with nothing better to do working hard to prove or disprove her assertions. But Sveta’s attention had already moved on from influencing dynamics pre-presentation and was now on changing dynamics post-presentation.

But it was really the subject of human behavior that held her fascination. Her mother had never fully recovered from her heartbreak, and Sveta could not understand why. How could one failed interpersonal relationship cause a woman to wither away? Sveta did not understand people, but she was determined to gain as much book knowledge on the subject as possible.

The potential ability to change someone’s dynamic was pushed to the back burner and became nothing more than a side project. Sveta graduated from university with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology at the age of sixteen. She went on to earn her PhD in Psychology while also studying to become a medical doctor.

The more Sveta studied, the more she realized that the only way to really get respect and recognition in society was to be an alpha. Sveta, unfortunately, was not an alpha. This only served to motivate her more. She was determined to uncover the secret to trans-dynamics. Unfortunately, decades’ worth of failed research in the field (as well as an almost alarmingly high rate of death and health complications among test subjects) made for more than a few ethics laws being passed on the subject and very few people willing to fund continued research.

Under the name Svetlana Farkas, Sveta continued to publish papers on the subject every time she came up with a new theory. She cared little for ethics, because she cared little for people. She lacked empathy and morals, though she did a good job of concealing this fact. She published seven theoretical papers on dynamics and just as many on the subject of human behavior and how to sculpt it beyond basic conditioning tactics.

It wasn’t her research on trans-dynamics that had drawn Hydra’s attention to Sveta, but one of her stipulations for agreeing to work with them was that they give funding and test subjects for her to continue studying it. Cutting ties with her past life and abandoning her birth name, Svetlana Farkas joined Hydra right after completing her medical degree.

Two years later, Svetlana achieved a partial success in her trans-dynamic experiments right before Hydra pulled the plug on it to have her focus her attention elsewhere. With that partial success, Svetlana did the one thing any smart scientist would tell you not to do: used herself as a test subject. The side-effects she suffered were mild in comparison to those of her other test subjects, and the end result was well worth, because from then on everyone who met Svetlana Farkas would believe without doubt that she was an alpha.

A year after that, Hydra created the identity Sylvia Wolff and quietly shuffled her in with the latest batch of SHIELD recruits. Her life as a SHIELD agent was uneventful, but her position within Hydra was becoming quite exciting. She’d originally been consulted when the only successful test subject of Project Icarus had proved resistant to Hydra’s usual means of mind control and memory modification. While she was unable to develop a way to get Wilson to comply, the complicated working of a dual dynamic mind being beyond her grasp at the time, when Subject Adam had been born, she’d been the first person contacted.

Subject Adam really was fascinating. Quite the little feat of science: genetically sculpted in the womb for heightened intelligence, physical condition on par with a super soldier, and a predisposition for compliance, not to mention his avian traits. And fell to Farkas to train him up to be their perfect little soldier, and he was so young and malleable, he would have been her masterpiece. And then some little rat had to spill the location of the Menagerie and if not for Svetlana’s quick thinking, Subject Adam (and the unborn Subject Eve) would have been disposed of along with all the other failed experiments at the base.

For months, all Farkas could do was watch as all her efforts into conditioning Subject Adam was slowly undone and Subject Eve failed to receive the need _in utero_ injections need to sculpt her to the greatness of her brother. But even confined to the identity of SHIELD Agent Sylvia Wolff, Farkas was able to retain her control and influence over Subject Adam. She was, after all, a specialist on human behavior.

Like she’d told Sargent Barnes, everything from room temperature to lighting played a role in how Wilson and Subject Adam adjusted to being out of the Menagerie. And SHIELD had so helpfully put her in charge of their meals, what agents were allowed to enter their room, what the agents were allowed to say, and even what colors those agents wore. It was almost too easy.

Farkas patiently bided her time, carefully maneuvering things into place so that the scene would be set when the time came for her to reclaim what was rightfully hers. The time was now. Subject Adam would either be her greatest achievement, or he and his incubator father would meet the same fate as the others in the Menagerie cages.

** … **

A week passed and Clint hadn’t returned from his mission, but Bucky wasn’t worried. There were a lot of unforeseen circumstances that could extend the length of even the simplest mission without actually endangering agents. There was no reason to be worried… until Bucky was woken out of his sleep by the mental equivalent of alarm bells blaring in his mind.

His first instinct was to reach for his links with Sam and RJ, but their ends of the bond were quiet and held nothing of concern. Still, Bucky’s heart was pounding and there’s a livewire feeling under his skin screaming _danger_. But it’s not Bucky in danger, nor Sam nor RJ, it’s… _CLINT_.

Studies have shown that in rare occurrences, an alpha and omega already involved in a physical relationship, with strong emotional ties and an already acknowledged intent to mate, could sometimes without a bonding bite begin to develop a pseudo-bond. Without the bonding bite to seal it, this pseudo-bond is likely to never develop into the empathy/telepathy levels of even a couple bond, never mind that of a triad bond. Usually this pseudo-bond remains dormant and unacknowledged, not making itself known until one party of the bond finds themselves in a dangerous situation.

It really was a rare thing, and Bucky hadn’t even considered that it might be forming between him and Clint, given how often one or both of them were in danger without it ever manifesting. But there’s no denying that it was Clint causing his alarm at the moment.

The urge to panic (his omega not-yet-mate was in trouble!) though present, was easily pushed aside. Panicking would help no one, after all. Bucky got to his feet and headed for the door, the plan in mind being to find Steve or Natasha or Maria or Fury and get proper intel so a proper plan could be made. His plan, however, is brought to a halt when the vent in the ceiling of his room, Clint’s preferred entrance, opened and a small figure that was definitely not Clint dropped to the floor.

Already on edge because of the knowledge that Clint was in trouble, it really wasn’t a surprise that his instinct was to attack the intruder. With a snarl, Bucky swings his metal fist. The room is dark, but Bucky knows this space enough to move through it blind, he knows what is where and definitely what is not supposed to be there. The air grows thick with alpha intimidation scent as his wild punch is expertly dodged.

Natasha’s voice and her responding pacifying omega scent reaches Bucky at the same time, and it’s enough break through the fog that wasn’t quite a rage frenzy but definitely close to one, driving Bucky’s instinct. He freezes him assault long enough to Natasha get to the switch on the other side of the room to flood the room with light.

“What the hell, Barnes?” Natalia asked, her face and tone expressing her annoyance.

The livewire feeling is still under Bucky’s skin, and the primal part of his brain is screaming for him to find Clint and neutralize the threat. “I…” Bucky tries to explain. He pauses, and tries again. “Clint is in danger. I can feel it.”

Natasha curses and her expression quickly hardens, the omega pacifying scent she’d been exuding briefly turning into alpha anger scent then back again. “I’m sure your instincts must be all over the place,” Natasha said calmly, “But I really need you to have a clear head right now. Sam and RJ need you to have a clear head right now.”

The urge to panic was growing stronger by the second, but Bucky pushed it down. “Sam and RJ?”

“I looked into what you asked me to,” Natasha explained handing over a file Bucky hadn’t noticed she was holding. “I’ll take care of Clint, while you take care of this.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos are lovely, but reviews keep me writing.
> 
> [My tumblr.](http://littleredtriskele.tumblr.com)


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